A Pound of Flesh
by sienna27
Summary: TV Show Episode Title Challenge - Bonus Challenge #5 - Title Challenge: Four Drops of Blood - Sequel to The Snake Pit. The clown is back! 1st person POVs. Rated M for violence, language and all kinds of other bad things. *WARNING CHARACTER DEATHS*
1. Prologue

**Author's Note**:

**HORROR STORY! – CHARACTER DEATHS! – READ THE BIG HONKING WARNING!**

This is an ugly, twisted, terrible tale and you really shouldn't be reading it. It's M rated up front for violence, **CHARACTER DEATHS**, and language. It's (some of you will be excited here) the sequel to_ The Snake Pit_. Not the one I was planning on writing though. If you'll recall there were two epilogues, one that ended ambiguously (A), and one that ended horrifically (B). I set up A specifically for a sequel but ironically, this is a continuation of B. So that tone, that no rules approach that anything can happen to anyone, that's what's in here.

As I said when I put up Snake Pit, if you like the relationship stories I write, this is not necessarily for you. Though it is established H/P, this is a capital "D" Dark, no humor, no fluff tale. The epilogue below will set the tone for the rest, if you don't like it, if it turns your stomach, walk away now! It's just going to get worse.

This is a horror movie. The only people that I can PROMISE that will be alive at the end are H/P and their offspring (Jack will always be off limits). Anyone else on the team, and anyone else's FAMILY (that is key!), is fair game.

**Warning Over - now to the plot of the story**:

This picks up approximately a year after the end of _The Snake Pit, Epilogue B_. Hotch and Emily have been in seclusion overseas living at the embassy in Berlin with her parents. They have Jack with them and they now have a new baby. Lucy. I thought Lucy in _A Love Story in Three Acts_ turned out really sweet so I stole her for this world too. The reason I thought to grab her, and the reason I'm laying out more of the plot now than normally I would do, is because this is like that world, ALL first person POV. So though all the pieces will fall together as the chapters roll along, I thought the basics would help up front.

More at the end.

This epilogue is Emily. Then we'll flash back about a week to the start of events that brought her to where she is now.

* * *

**Bonus Challenge # 5**

Show: Family Law

Title Challenge: Four Drops of Blood

* * *

_Emily's POV_

**Prologue**

Four drops of blood.

Four drops of blood. That's all I can see from my position on the floor.

But there's more . . . my stomach dips as my eyes fill . . . _so_ much more. I know this because I heard the screams.

And the power saw.

It was Dave.

The grief wells up . . . our best friend. His unwavering loyalty to us is why he suffered so much more than the others. One by one he had to find their bodies.

And then he had to watch his own be cut into pieces.

Next to my husband . . . next to my Aaron . . . Dave was the strongest man I knew.

But no more.

We all have our limits. We all break eventually. I wonder what my limit will be. When will I begin to scream and simply be unable to stop? When will I beg for someone to kill me?

These aren't questions that you should have to ask yourself. But I need to prepare. I need to prepare because I know that I'll be next.

The man . . . I shake my head in disgust . . . not a man . . . the clown. That fucking clown, he'll be back. He promised. And that fucker does keep his promises.

He promised Aaron he'd make him suffer for ruining his fun.

And he did.

He promised that he would take me from him.

And he did.

The only promise he didn't keep . . . the only comfort I have left in the world . . . is that he didn't get Jack first. Or his baby sister.

I know that our children are safe.

My heart twists in pain . . . I miss them so much! And my breasts ache with milk. I'd just begun to wean Lucy off so I could go back to work. And now I fear that I'll never see my baby again. My heart breaks with the knowledge that she won't remember me . . . the tears begin to run down my face again . . . us. She won't remember us.

Aaron will be the last to die.

And my baby will never how much her daddy loved her. She'll never know that her birth was what pulled him out of his spiraling guilt and depression over the horrible death of his ex-wife.

When I was terrified that Aaron was slipping beyond my grasp . . . that he would never smile again . . . suddenly he came back to me. And that was our Lucy.

That was her birth.

She and Jack are all that we live for now. All that we have left.

I've thanked God every moment since my capture that my children are still with my parents inside the embassy. There are almost 5000 miles separating us from Berlin. There are razor wires lining the fences. There are Marines at the gates.

And my father is there.

A man who hunted terrorists for thirty years has taken an indefinite leave to stay with my babies. So I know without a doubt that my children are safe.

My children will live.

Even if we don't.

A sob breaks free . . . I don't want to die! I'm terrified and I want my husband! I want my husband to save me. Yet I want him nowhere near where I am.

I know that my time is short. I haven't been butchered yet, but I know that it will begin soon.

Where's the fun in keeping me alive any longer if I'm not trapped, screaming in my own hell? And I don't want my last moments of anguish and terror to be filled with the knowledge that Aaron is here too. That he will see my agony and be unable to save me.

Then the clown will win.

We should have stayed away. We never should have come home. It was already too late. They were already dead.

All dead except for . . . OH GOD!

THE DOOR'S OPENING!

A figure appears out of the darkness and my eyes widen in horror . . . NO, NO, NO!

I begin to scream.

* * *

_A/N 2: So yeah, that pretty much sets the tone for the rest. Like I said, it's an ugly story. It's not for everyone's taste. It's just going to get worse from here folks so if you don't like it so far please back out now._

_I'll tell you, though there is a high body count, and lots of bad things are in store, not EVERYONE is dead. But I wanted to be clear by the "apparent" death of Dave (nothing's definite until you see a body) that nobody's safe. I think I've made it clear many times that he's my fave next to H/P so if I'm willing to off Dave that gruesomely then we're definitely going down the rabbit hole to hell. _

_I said I wanted to try writing a horror story first person, and as I started to write the opening of "Four Drops" I realized this idea totally lent itself to that format. So each chapter will be told from a different character's POV. The entire cast is included (it was a good way to get them all into it). In some instances you'll be following along with that character in his (her) head in the last moments of his (her) life. If I do it correctly (fingers crossed) then it should be creepy and upsetting. I already have the first six chapters mostly written. I'm hoping to crank out another tomorrow on the commute (1st person is a MUCH faster write) and get them to second drafts this weekend. I was adamant about not posting anything until the story was clearly pulled together on my end. I'm juggling too many things to start throwing something new up if I couldn't guarantee that I'd be able to wrap this by Halloween. But we're in really good shape :) And I promise I'll continue to be posting on other stuff as well. This commute writing's really been a lifesaver!_

_The cool thing about the 1__st__ person POV is that there's no omniscience. You only know, you only see, what that person sees. So sometimes things aren't as they appear. Or sometimes a chapter will end ambiguously. The next character will pull the thread forward and you'll find out what happened. That's why I said, until you "see" a body for someone, you'll never know what happened to that person. _

_What's weird, and disturbing, is that, as awful as this story is, given what we've seen so far this season. I no longer see it as terribly farfetched. That's why I felt okay going forward with it. Like if Foyette wasn't just a sick fuck and was literally like the devil himself, I don't think it would be an incredible stretch to say that a lot of the stuff that happens here couldn't happen in canon. You know, theoretically, if they were married and this was a show on HBO rather than network television._

_I'm trying to use all the Halloween prompts in this story. And Derek's will be chapter 1, picking up about 4 or 5 days before this opening. Morgan's car breaks down in the middle of the night. This chapter is done and I'm planning on posting it Monday. Feedback might get it up a day earlier though :) _

_**Next: "Something's Coming" (Derek's POV: Prompt - Route 666)**_


	2. Something's Coming

**Author's Note**: Okay, chapter 1. We're starting the story with Derek a week before the events of the epilogue with Emily.

* * *

**Bonus Challenge # 5**

Show: Supernatural

Title Challenge: Route 666

_Derek's POV – Seven Days Earlier_

* * *

**Something's Coming**

The engine begins to sputter . . . and then cough . . . and then rattle. I look down at the gas gauge to see that the needle is on Empty.

'SHIT!'

I just topped off the tank this afternoon before I locked up the cabin. How the hell did I run out of gas already?

With a groan, I ease over to the side of the road and shut down the engine.

Well, however it happened . . . I bang my head on the steering wheel . . . now I'm fucked. It's dark . . . I look out the windows, taking in my surroundings . . . pitch black actually. Which figures given I'm in the middle of nowhere, otherwise known as the red state portion of Virginia.

It's Saturday night . . . actually . . . I check my watch . . . it's fast rolling into Sunday morning. And now I'm _seriously_ regretting my brilliant plan to avoid the traffic by driving home in the dead of night and then sleeping in tomorrow.

Yeah . . . I stare into the inky blackness surrounding me . . . that was probably not my best call.

I pull my cell phone off of my belt only to see that I have no signal.

Of course . . . I groan . . . I'm in a dead zone. My hands scrub down my face in frustration.

Okay, now what the hell am I gonna do? No gas . . . no phone . . . no people for miles.

Then I bite back a sigh . . . I know what I have to do.

Walk.

The idea seems like a really bad one even as it comes to me. But what else can I do? I'm on a back road. There's no guarantee anybody's going to come along before morning.

And maybe not even then.

It will be Sunday. And around these parts everyone's off at church until noon. And I'm sure as hell not going to sit here on my ass for the next twelve hours.

Decision now made to do something really stupid, I ready myself for the walk ahead. Before I open the door, I pull my spare Mag light out from under the front seat and check to make sure it works.

Light comes on, light goes off . . . yep . . . it works.

Flashlight situation clarified, I reach over to get my FBI placard from the glove compartment.

That gets placed in the front window.

Hopefully a trooper or sheriff's deputy will come along and find it. This isn't the District, but that doesn't mean I won't come back tomorrow morning to find my car stripped.

There are lots of chop shops out in the boonies.

The last thing I do before I step out of the car is to check my weapon. It's a low crime county, but given the things that I've seen over the years I take no chances anywhere anymore.

People who think they live in a safe world are kidding themselves.

Finally . . . with another disgusted sigh at the circumstances I find myself in . . . I open my door and step out into the warm fall night.

It's September but summer lingers in this part of the world, and the air is thick with moisture and the smell of honeysuckle growing wild in the forest around me. It's a sickening, cloying smell that fills the air and my stomach turns once in protest.

But there's nothing to be done about that.

Just before I shut the door, I remember that I left an FBI windbreaker in the trunk.

The lettering is reflective and the road is dark. So even though the weather is warm, I decide it's best if I put it on. So I lean back into the car to pop the trunk.

For an instant, as I'm stepping back, I almost shut the door.

Just out of habit.

But then I realize that I could use the bit of light, so I decide to leave it open.

I go around to the back of the car. Aside from the faint insect calls, the low dinging of the bell alerting me to the open door is the only sound in the night.

It's creeping me out. The silence.

I'm a city boy, born and raised. I like the solitude of my cabin, but only for brief pockets of time. Once I decide to go home. I want to be home. I want to be back in the world again.

And right now I'm so far from the world it's not even funny.

But I can't dwell on that. I need to get my frigging jacket so I can get to the gas station and get the fuck out here before I become a character in the sequel to Deliverance.

I begin to rifle through my trunk . . . now where the frigging hell did I put the damn windbreaker? Ah . . . my eyes light up as I spot it balled up in the corner behind the flares . . . there it is.

After I pull on the jacket . . . right when I'm about to slam down the trunk . . . something on the ground catches my eye.

A puddle.

I was so intent on my search for the windbreaker that I almost missed it. But now I can clearly see that it's a widening pool.

A pool that's running out in a steady stream from underneath my car.

My brow wrinkles in confusion and I turn, looking behind me, running my flashlight along the dark pavement.

The stream of what . . . to my growing alarm appears to be fuel . . . runs back as far as I can see.

The liquid glints where the light hits it.

'What the FUCK?!'

The hairs on my arms are starting to rise up. This isn't right. Fuel lines don't just break.

A horrible thought comes to me and I stoop down so I can look under the back of the car.

The fuel line has definitely been cut . . . the gasoline's still trickling out of the ragged hole.

My blood runs cold . . . it looks like a serrated blade cut it.

'FUCK! WHO THE **FUCK** DID THAT?!'

I jump back up, trying to look everywhere at once. As I spin around, I run the light through the darkness ahead and the darkness behind.

It appears I'm alone but who the fuck knows? The trees are dense and the road has no lights. The only illumination around me is from the stars above, the lights of the car, and the flashlight in my hand.

All I know for sure is that there's nobody standing within ten feet of me. Beyond that . . . someone could be watching from the woods and I'd never know.

Now that I'm sufficiently freaked I'm unsure what to do. Should I stay with the car, hoping someone comes along? Or should I try to go for help?

My fuel line was deliberately cut. Of this I'm sure. So it's probable that the perpetrator is following me, waiting for me to leave the safety of my vehicle.

That's a thought that ramps my heart rate up another notch.

But really . . . my spirits fall even further . . . there is no safety in my vehicle. I'm a sitting duck on the side of the road.

The car offers no protection if I can't drive away from an approaching danger. Someone could pull up and put a bullet in my head.

No . . . no . . . I violently shake my head . . . I CAN'T stay here.

I'm not going out like that.

Though I'll be exposed, it's still better to risk the walk. There's a gas station about five miles ahead. I can cover five miles more quickly than the average person. And even if the station's closed I know there's a payphone there.

I can get help.

Decision made, I quietly click the trunk shut. Though I barely let the latch catch . . . the sound is still deafening in the still night.

Without the sounds of the city you don't realize just how quiet the world is. And right now, I appear to be someone's prey so I'd like to bring as little attention to myself as possible.

God knows if it'll do any good though.

After another quick run of the flashlight, I go back around to the front of the car. After knocking the driver's side door shut with my hip, I take off at a jog.

My only defenses against the creatures in the darkness . . . my Glock in one hand, my flashlight in the other.

Hopefully they'll be enough.

I'm not afraid of the dark, not usually. But right now my rising panic about that rapidly expanding puddle of fuel is giving me a new phobia. It's making all of the harmless noises of the invisible forest sound like death knells to me.

The crickets . . . the cicadas . . . I can hear them more clearly now than when I was back at the car.

They make me feel isolated . . . alone.

Suddenly I hear a loud noise off to my left. I whip around . . . eyes wide . . . heart racing.

'WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!'

A moment later something breaks through the trees . . . my heart's in my throat . . . it's coming right at me!

Just as I'm about to fire I see it for what it is. Not an UNSUB.

A doe.

She's racing across the road. I jump back just in time to avoid being trampled.

For a moment I stand there, trying to catch my breath and slow my racing heart.

'That thing could have KILLED me!'

Suddenly I bark a laugh . . . maybe Bambi cut my fuel line.

For a millisecond the joke eases my tension, but as I hear my laughter echoing in the night I'm suddenly creeped out even worse than I was before. I scream inside my head.

'THERE'S **NOTHING** FUNNY HERE DEREK! NOTHING FUNNY AT ALL!'

My feet pick up again . . . I need to keep moving. I need to get to where there are people. Preferably people like me.

The kind that carry badges and guns.

I begin to quicken my pace. At full speed I can do a mile in six minutes, forty two seconds. But I don't want to exert myself too badly.

If something happens I might need a burst of speed.

So I keep moving at a moderate clip. Ten minutes pass, I'm beginning to get slightly winded . . . and very sweaty.

The air is too moist and my jacket is too hot. But I'm afraid to take it off.

If there's a problem . . . if something happens . . . I need my identity to be clear.

This might be 2010 . . . and I might be a decorated federal agent . . . but I'm also a black man in rural Virginia.

Confederate flags still dot the countryside around here. A black man that fires a gun in the dead of night better have a badge to explain himself.

As ten minutes spreads into twenty the sweat begins to run down my face in rivulets.

My panic grows equally with every pounding of my foot on the pavement.

I feel like I'm running from something . . . but I don't know what. It's the worst kind enemy . . . the one you can't see.

My panic suddenly spikes . . . I have to run faster.

'SOMETHING'S COMING!'

I can feel it even though I can't yet see it.

But I must go faster . . . my boots slam over and over on the asphalt . . . I'm compelled to go faster.

Suddenly I'm blinded by the oncoming headlights coming around the curve in the road.

My heart rate skyrockets as I stop in the street, gasping for breath.

'OH GOD! HE'S HERE!'

But whose arriving . . . salvation or executioner?

Unable to see anything clearly for the spots in my eyes . . . I run to the side of the road. I'm now close enough to the tree line that I can run into the forest if I have to.

The car speeds past me and then I see the blue lights on the roof.

They begin to flash.

Relief and joy flood my body as I wipe the sweat from my brow . . . THANK YOU JESUS!

The cruiser stops on the other side of the street, a little further down the road. It's angled in the direction I just came from.

The brake lights shine red pools on the road. All of the windows are still up.

The tension begins to leave my jaw . . . this was the best case scenario. Anyone but a fellow law enforcement officer coming around that corner and I probably would have fired a bullet through the windshield.

Shoot first ask questions later.

The Bureau wouldn't approve.

At that thought I realize then how truly frightened I was. It's always after the moment's pass that things come to you.

My jaw twitches as I slowly raise my badge and lower my weapon, calling out loudly.

"FBI! My car broke down!"

Then I wait.

Giving the deputy the chance to process what he's seeing. If I was in his situation I'd be acting with caution as well.

He's as alone out here as I am.

If something happened when he was on the back roads . . . even with his radio . . . he'd be dead long before backup could arrive.

So with that thought in mind I'm patient a moment longer. But as I stand there, holding up my badge, watching the blue lights bounce off the shiny metal I'm holding in my head . . . I suddenly realize that there's something wrong.

It shouldn't be taking him this long to radio his position. To decide whether or not I'm a threat.

By now he should have lowered his window slightly, asked for my name and badge number, and told me to stay where I was while he verified my identity.

But he's done none of those things . . . my stomach begins to churn again.

Why hasn't he done any of those things yet?

He's just staring at me.

The reflection of the glass prevents me from seeing his face clearly. But I can see that his head is turned in my direction.

Just watching.

That's enough to majorly creep me out . . . but suddenly my terror and panic spike beyond reason. But I don't know why.

'WHAT DID I JUST SEE?!'

I begin to pray . . . GOD! COME ON MAN! HELP ME OUT HERE!

Something . . . my brain runs faster and faster . . . something . . . SOMETHING . . . **SOMETHING!**

'I JUST **SAW** SOMETHING AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS!'

My weapon is pointed at the ground. It has been since I'd decided that this person posed no threat to me. But now I know in my heart . . . in the chill of my bones . . . that this person does indeed pose a threat.

I don't know how I know this but I do. Why can't I remember what it was that I . . . and then I see it.

What my subconscious must have picked up on a moment before has now permeated by conscious mind.

Blood.

There's blood on his door. It's a splatter. At first . . . in the darkness, I interpreted it as mud . . . dirt . . . something churned up in these back roads all around us.

But it's not.

There's an arterial spray pattern. Something you'd only see if you looked at as many crime scene photos as I had.

My heart begins to jackhammer. This isn't a sheriff's deputy staring at me through the glass.

It's an UNSUB.

I bite back a moan . . . the deputy's dead. And his killer's staring at me.

My gun starts to rise up and the driver peels off.

I run into the street, firing shot after shot at his fading red lights.

But still he keeps driving.

If I've hit him, neither the wound nor the damage to the car can be very serious.

Even after the lights have disappeared I continue to pull the trigger. And then my gun clicks and I realize that I've fired too many shots.

My clip is empty.

'**FUCK!'**

I don't have a spare! I wasn't out on an assignment. I was out on VACATION! The only spare clip I have is back in the . . .

Suddenly a lightning bolt slams into me and I curse myself for being a fool.

My backup piece.

The gun I only carry because Hotch carried one. He told me a spare weapon might come in handy some day.

At the thought of my old boss . . . even though I have no time for distractions . . . I'm suddenly filled with a wave of sadness that washes into my fear.

It's been almost a year since I've seen Hotch.

Hotch or Emily.

I don't even know where they are, just that Rossi said that they're safe. They had to go away after what happened with Haley. It wasn't safe for them here, not with an UNSUB stalking them.

At the moment . . . I pull out my backup piece and start jogging again . . . I can relate.

Pushing aside thoughts of other people's life or death problems, I focus in again on my own. There are no coincidences, not in a situation like this. So whoever was in the cruiser had to have been the same person who cut the fuel line. He wanted me out here alone.

'BUT WHO THE FUCK IS IT?!'

You chase down serials for a living and you make the hit list of a lot of dangerous people.

I pick up the pace of my run. I'm no longer concerned about using up my energy. My only focus, my only desire in life . . . is to reach civilization.

The guy's going to come back. He's going to try again.

They always do.

The sweat begins to pour down my face. My lungs are screaming. And still I run faster. I know I'd covered at least two miles before the cruiser appeared.

So I should have less than a mile to go before I reach that gas station. It should be coming up soon.

'PLEASE GOD!' I pray, 'PLEASE JUST GIVE ME A CHANCE!'

I turn the corner and suddenly I see it just ahead. It's an old mom and pop place but I know instantly that mom and pop are in bed.

Though there's one sodium light flooding the parking lot, I can see the station itself is dark.

But that's okay . . . a grim smile touches my lips as I sprint the last fifty feet . . . there's a phone!

A shiny new phone like a beacon in the night.

As I pound up to it my breath is ragged and I yank the receiver out it's cradle. My first thought is not to call 911.

No . . . I jam in four quarters . . . the cruiser will have a radio. I have to call Rossi.

He'll send me help that I can trust.

My hands are shaking as I hit the buttons. Weapon or no weapon I couldn't be more vulnerable right now.

It's the middle of the night and I'm in the middle of nowhere with some freak chasing after me. Some freak who apparently killed a sheriff's deputy already. The phone begins to ring . . . some freak who cut my fuel line.

The bile rises up in my throat as the full reality of my situation suddenly slams into me.

The freak already knows where I live. He was at my cabin today.

'FUCK!'

I start to plead into the night.

"COME ON ROSSI! PICK UP THE PHONE MAN!"

The phone rings a third time, and then a fourth. I'm now screaming in my head.

'**ROSSI ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE!'**

Just as I hear the phone click in one ear, in the other there's the sudden roaring of an engine.

Then two things happen at once.

The lights come running at me and I hear Dave's husky voice on the line.

"Hello."

Everything slows down . . . for a moment I can't even speak. For I realize in that split second what a fool I've been.

The freak circled back around in the dark. And then he rode up silently with his lights off.

AND I'M THE FUCKING ASSHOLE STANDING IN THE SPOTLIGHT!

As the headlights get brighter I scream into the phone, "**DAVE, I NEED HELP!"**

And then I'm running, trying to away before I'm flattened into a pancake.

But I'm not fast enough.

As the cruiser slams into the telephone going at least 40 mph . . . the bumper clips my leg.

I scream in agony as the bone shatters . . . but still I keep moving.

The pain is excruciating but it doesn't matter. Pain means I'm alive. But I won't be much longer if I don't move my ass.

Now I'm half running . . . half limping, trying to get away.

The part of my brain still making rational decisions remembers I have a gun.

I turn . . . firing blindly at the cruiser.

But the weapon's jostled by my awkward . . . pathetic . . . attempt at escape.

My shots go wide. My clip is again empty.

I know then that I'm going to die.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I'M GOING TO DIE!

The reality of it is starting to sink in . . . and all I can picture is my mother getting a flag.

I push the image away as I hear the cruiser spinning around. It's brakes are squealing as my boots leave the gravel of the gas station parking lot.

Then my doc martens are once again slapping down on asphalt.

My blood's pounding in my ears . . . my hope's fading . . . and then I hear the roar of the engine again.

He's behind me. This is it.

This is the end.

In a last ditch effort to save myself I attempt to seek shelter in the trees lining the road. But my shattered femur betrays me.

As I try to leap over the ditch I feel myself falling to the ground. I try to scramble away but the headlights blind me. I can't see which way to turn!

My prayers of desperation come out in scream.

"**JESUS MARY MOTHER OF GOD! PLEASE NO!**

* * *

_A/N 2: I said I wasn't killing everyone, but I did say I was killing some of them. And you're welcome to send up a prayer for Derek's miraculous escape from his very bad scene. His status will be clarified in the next chapter. _

_The part of Virginia that I have Morgan in does most definitely still have quite a few confederate flags in it. It's the 'off the Beltway' portion of Virginia. It's a very different world._

_Given I've been putting poor Morgan through the wringer this week I'm going to try to write him something fluffy and romantic. Just to try to make it up to the poor guy. So I might be trying out a new ship! Yes, I know very exciting :)_

_I need to type up the next chapter but it'll be up by the end of the weekend. Perhaps earlier but I make no promises. I have to focus on Girl this week._

_Next: "__**The Wee Hours**__" – Dave's POV._


	3. The Wee Hours

**Author's Note**: Here's an update I bet nobody was expecting! Don't feel bad, I wasn't expecting it either :) But I started going through the precious notebooks (which predated the precious laptop), and I remembered that this story had hit the ground running, but then I left it sitting on the ground. And fortunately I was in the right frame of mind to jump back into a little bit of it. It helped being in that mind set in that some weirdo was pounding on my door after midnight last night and I had to call the cops. Yeah, that part was very UNfortunate, but they got the guy so I'm good. It was easier to tap into the 'oh crap!' state of mind though.

And I figured, if I have something ready to put up, I might as well put it up. I said all of the little stories will get to the finish line eventually but I have to kind of keep them moving along if that's gonna happen :)

If you've discovered me over the past couple months, please know, that this is a VERY dark, very ugly story. Nothing like any of the relationship stuff I've become better known for writing. So you might want to back away slowly! This is just another part of my brain that occasionally feels the need to speak up. Though it's not carnage without purpose or placement, I do try to inject humanity into these scenes.

This chapter picks up from Dave's POV about an hour or so after we left Morgan on the side of the road.

* * *

**Challenge # 6**

Show: The X Files

Title Challenge: This Is Not Happening

* * *

_Dave's POV_

**The Wee Hours**

As I walk up, the smell of blood and feces assaults me as though it were a physical entity.

In an attempt to brace myself I suck in a breath of air through my mouth. But I already know what's coming as my eyes drop down to the carnage before me.

Derek.

I'm nearly overcome by the wave of grief that washes over me. Oh dear God. I've seen so many horrible things in my life, but this might be the worst. Not only for what has been done to this good man . . . but because he was my friend.

I have no immunity, no way to distance myself from this moment, and I have to turn my head. But still the image fills my mind.

His body was crushed flat across the head and the midsection. Skid marks run across his clothes, his bones and organs are ground to jelly in some places.

And as my eyes track along the gravel, I see there's brain matter smeared across the ground.

_OH GOD!_

Even though I haven't thrown up at crime scene in twenty-five years, I slap my hand over my mouth as I turn, running to the other side of the street before the contents of my stomach are expelled.

Even in my grief . . . even in my horror . . . I still remember to preserve the scene.

I don't know if that's admirable or pathetic.

The job is so much a part of me now that I'm no longer capable of having a simple human reaction. Even my sorrow is tainted by procedure.

Perhaps pathetic is the only word for it.

As my stomach recoils for the second time, all I can think of is the team. They won't be able to take this. Not after losing Hotch and Emily.

Hotch was our steel, Emily was our heart. We've been diminished . . . weakened by their absence. Morgan's murder will be the death knell for all of us.

With heaving breaths, I finally get my stomach back under control. For now anyway.

I have no doubt that it will betray me again later.

As I wipe my hand across my mouth, I look back across the street and see the deputies watching me.

They want answers. They want to know who did this. Not because they care about my friend, no, they want to know because whoever did this also killed their deputy.

The one whose cruiser was responsible for the carnage wrought upon Morgan's body.

Their deputy was found with his naked body hacked up and stuffed into the bathroom of the gas station standing thirty yards away.

His cruiser is gone, but we've all worked enough accident scenes to read the treads. And the ones on the road . . . the bile rises up again . . . the ones on Derek's body . . . they're from the same make and model of vehicle as those surrounding us.

The lights of all of those cruisers are on now, their blue and red flashers slightly distorted by the mist rising up from the ground.

And though I know it's an illusion, sound also appears muffled. Suddenly I wonder if Derek felt any pain. I already know that he felt fear. I heard his scream right before the phone went dead.

My blood had run cold at that sound and I was already dialing the switchboard and tracing the call before I'd even cleared the mattress.

But by the time I arrived . . . by the time anyone arrived . . . it was all over.

Long over.

Fortunately tracking back my last call received took only a few minutes. And we quickly located the payphone and patched a message through to the county sheriff that we had a federal agent in jeopardy.

Little did we know that he wasn't the only one.

When I pulled up less than ten minutes ago, the scene was filled with beige uniforms. But of course word spreads quickly when one of your own goes down.

Which reminds me again that I need to call the team. They need to find out from me. With Hotch gone I'm all they have left.

Dad without Mom.

And I'm not up to filling both of our roles. I'm not good at holding their hands. Of comforting them the way that Aaron could.

The way that Emily could.

Wherever they are now, I hope that they're starting to find some peace. I wish that they could stay in ignorance. That this horror was something that I could keep from them.

But I know that I can't.

They'll want to know. And they'll want to come back. But coming back isn't an option. They're in Germany now, both are working out of the field office in Berlin.

After what happened to Haley, Strauss told them that they could go anywhere, they just had to point on the map.

They picked Germany because that's where Emily's parents are now. They live in the embassy with them. Marines guard the fortress. Jack goes to the American school at Ramstein. Of all the options available to them after Haley's death, it was the most palatable.

Though they had to leave their lives here, they kept their identities and they stayed with their family.

It was better than witness protection.

They've been gone almost a year. Nobody here knows their location but the Director, Strauss and myself. Their personnel files have been classified need to know access only. I had Garcia set up the firewall and then I had Kevin attempt to breach it.

He couldn't.

That's how I know that they'll be okay there. And someday we'll get them back.

But that's another day.

Today I need to figure out who killed Derek. Today I have to break my team's hearts.

Hearing car doors slam, I turn, seeing a pudgy older man exiting the passenger side of a Sheriff's Department SUV.

The Sheriff himself.

For the moment I ignore him. His concerns and my concerns diverge at the shape of our badges.

A star and a shield.

Both of us want to find out who committed these horrific acts, but our loyalties are literally on opposite sides of the street.

So for another few seconds I simply breathe in and out, trying to clear the horrible odors from my nostrils.

But the air isn't helping my nausea. It's humid and I can smell some flower in the air . . . honeysuckle.

There have been so many dumpsites over the past thirty years . . . so many paths through the woods lined with honeysuckle. The smell is now associated in my mind with the stench of decay.

I hate wildflowers.

Footsteps approach from behind, they're heavy and stamping down on the hard pavement. The sheriff has been told of my presence.

He's pissed.

My jaw is steel as I turn to face him. My grief is mine alone.

It won't be shared with this man.

He stops in front of me, eyes blazing, nostrils flaring, his hot fetid breath assaulting my face.

"WHO DID THIS?!" he roars.

I stare at him for a moment, sizing him up. I know that he's frightened . . . this is a level of violence that he has no experience with. And I know that he too is grieving the loss of one of his men . . . but still he comes up short in my estimation.

His uniform is badly wrinkled . . . and though I know it's the middle of the night, this to me indicates that he doesn't take pride in his work. He should have had one pressed and ready for the next day. He should NOT have pulled one from the hamper.

From the large silver cross hanging from his neck I can also see that he's a God fearing man.

More atrocities have been committed in the name of God than probably anything else. The road to hell is paved with God fearing men.

I hate him on sight.

My jaw twitches once before I spit back, "the FUCK if I know."

As I'd hoped, he physically recoils from my obscenity. I know it's wrong . . . it's rather perverse really . . . but making him feel worse, for a moment makes me feel better.

But then I look back across the street at the ruin that was once my friend.

And I feel shame well up inside of me.

Morgan was a cop . . . he wouldn't approve of my treatment of this man. He'd make excuses for him and we'd argue. Sometimes good naturedly.

Sometimes not.

But at the end of the day, one of us would toss the other the keys and we'd drive off together. To another crime scene, another interview . . . my stomach churns . . . another autopsy.

'_Oh dear God! They're going to cut him up!'_

Suddenly I flash on the county coroner, he hasn't arrived yet. He's a man that leads a different life than a medical examiner in the city. He's probably the local GP or maybe the pediatrician. He's taken a few certification courses, and then he raised some money, pressed some flesh, and ran for a local seat.

And now this man who knows nothing of the horrors we've seen, is going to cut open my friend.

No . . . that's not happening. Morgan has to come with me. He's mine. And he'll remain mine until we put him in the ground.

I need to assert control of the scene.

When I first arrived my grief blinded me to these basic facts. But my grief serves Morgan no purpose right now. Later I can mourn, now I need to find his killer.

Because obviously . . . this was no accident.

I clear my throat before saying in a tone that brokers no room for discussion, "I'm taking jurisdiction," and then I pull out my cell phone and walk away.

As I depart, I can hear the sheriff bellowing behind me, but I put it out of my mind. Usually we play nice, we ask to be invited . . . but not today.

Today a federal agent is dead.

As I stare down at my phone, I picture the order of my calls.

JJ, Spencer, Garcia, the crime lab and then Strauss.

The team has to know before anyone else, they can't hear this from anyone but me.

I check my watch to see that it's not yet dawn. My heart twists as I picture their reactions, one by one, ruining their lives.

These will be the worst wake up calls ever.

But I can see the grey beginning to lighten the sky in the east. The world continues to spin, and time is slipping away from me. As much as I want to shield them from this horror, they need to be told.

Also . . . I need Spencer with me now.

I need somebody else to walk the scene while it's fresh. To catch what I miss. The others though . . . the girls . . . I'll keep them away.

It may be chauvinistic but I don't care. They don't need to be here, they don't need to see this. Their time is better spent back at the office compiling lists, running down leads and hunches that Spencer and I will call in.

That's what they do now. JJ is out of the spotlight . . . out of the field too. After what happened last year, after Hotch and Emily went into hiding, everything changed. I was put in charge and I was told to hire replacement agents to fill out the ranks.

But I refused.

I said we had gone through too much, that we needed some time to adjust. I promised that we would handle things on our own, that our clearance rate wouldn't drop. And then I told Strauss that if she fought me on this . . . I would bury her.

And she knew that I could, so she's left us alone.

I changed procedures completely. Not back to what they were to when I started, but to something new entirely. Derek, Spencer and I walk . . . I swallow as my brain makes the correction . . . _walked_, every scene together. And then Derek and I do (did) the interviews and Spencer is dropped back at the station where he works victimology with JJ.

JJ isn't left in the office because she's a woman, I leave her in the office because she's a mother.

I was there that day they opened the trunk, I heard those screams.

I saw the mutilation.

Though there was no way for me to prevent what happened to Jack's mother, I can at least guarantee that it will never happen to Henry's.

My stomach begins to retch at the thought of it. Not my JJ.

Once she was Hotch's trusted lieutenant, but now she's mine. My sweet JJ, I love her from afar as she raises her happy family and lives the life that I could never manage to pull together.

I need to call and shatter the mindless bliss of her slumber.

With a growing sense of dread, I scroll down the list of my contacts until I reach her name. And then I take one more moment before I hit the green button.

It rings four times . . . five and suddenly I flash on Derek's call to me. His killer was stalking him in that moment, right before he screamed my name . . . and . . . and . . .

The phone picks up and I hear Will's distinctive drawl on the line, "hello."

He's half asleep.

By rote, I apologize for the hour and tell him I need JJ. There's a murmuring of voices and then my girl is clearing her throat, "Dave? Do we have a case?"

Tears fill my eyes as I picture the innocence that I'm about to crush. The belief that we can always outrun the monsters was an illusion.

One that we've paid for dearly tonight.

"Honey . . . something's happened."

It takes me a few tries but eventually I get it all out. For a moment there's silence and then she begins to weep. I can hear Will in the background asking what's wrong, what's happened.

And that's when my own tears finally come.

* * *

_A/N 2: I had said I was going to kill some of the team, but not all of the team. And even if some people "appeared" dead, that wasn't always the case. However, in this instance, we'll have to cross Derek off the scorecard. You don't get much more dead than he was. As to the rest . . . eh, I do not know ;)_

_The next bit is from Reid's POV and I honestly might get that one up this weekend too. If not then over the next week or so. I'm not moving this story up to front burner status, but again, if I have chapters done, it's dumb to just leave them sitting there. _

_And yeah, I made this a bit of a Rossi/JJ. That wasn't in the cards but I thought it worked. _

_So now that we're a bit further into this, what do you think? Again, I'm not trying to just write a "horror" story. Though this is clearly quite horrible, it's more just a dark, twisty tale sort of exploring all of these underbelly emotions. _

_Okay, I'm going to make some dinner now because nothing builds up an appetite like describing a crime scene! _


	4. What Have I Done to Deserve This?

**Author's Note**: I know I said Reid would be next, but then I was reading over what I finished and I realized this order fit better. This one's Garcia, and this takes place at the same time Dave arrives at the crime scene.

* * *

**Bonus Challenge # 5**

Show: Supernatural

Title Challenge: Bloody Mary

* * *

_Garcia's POV - Simultaneous with Dave's arrival at the crime scene_

**What Have I Done to Deserve This?**

My eyes suddenly pop open and I'm staring straight up at the ceiling.

I'm awake but I don't know why.

Cocking my head slightly to the side, I listen intently . . . but I hear nothing out of the ordinary.

Perhaps it was a car backfiring.

But as long as I'm awake I realize that I might as well go to the bathroom. I push back the sheet and the light blue blanket . . . there was a chill when I went to bed . . . as I turn to check the time.

3:46

Hmm . . . I bite my lip . . . maybe it was the garbage truck that woke me.

Slowly I climb out of bed . . . it's too early to be awake. And besides . . . I rub my eyes . . . it was probably nothing.

So with a yawn, I begin to pad down the hall to the bathroom. It's not until I trip over one of my heels that I realize that I maybe should have put on my glasses.

I'm blind as a mole without them.

Oh well, it's not like I don't know where everything goes. And given that I can't see anything anyway, I don't even bother turning on the overhead light in the bathroom.

The small nightlight in the hall is more than sufficient for me to do my business.

Business that is quickly attended to, but as I'm washing my hands I suddenly hear something.

Something . . . my heart jumps into my throat . . . that I know isn't a garbage truck.

It was much too close for that.

_Oh crap! What was THAT?!_

I freeze . . . my stomach flips once . . . my gaze stays fixed on the stream of water running out of the faucet and swirling down the drain.

I can't look up.

I'm completely paralyzed as I hear another noise that is even closer still. It's like a shuffling, something dragging on the floor.

Someone's in my house.

'_OH SWEET BABY JESUS SOMEONE'S IN MY HOUSE!'_

The reality of this fact finally breaks the freeze on my brain. Staring at the faucet isn't helping, I need to DO something!

But WHAT should I do?!

In this moment my most ardent wish was that I had let Derek take me for shooting lessons like he'd been pestering me to do for years. But I've always hated handguns. They exist solely to take human life.

And I hated them even more after one shot a bullet into me.

Though even with my good standing membership in the Brady Campaign, right now I'd kill for a Saturday Night Special.

Okay . . . I try to get my panic under control . . . well maybe with the water still running whoever this is will think he has the element of surprise. So he'll keep moving slowly.

And then the little woman in my brain quickly shouts out that this half assed plan does me no good if I can't think of another plan to take the place of this one in about thirty seconds!

Because my apartment only has three rooms.

Even if he's part snail, eventually this guy is going to make his way down the hall.

Regardless of my lack of direction, I decide to keep the water on and my head down as I desperately try to think of something in the bathroom to use as a weapon.

. . . towels

. . . shampoo bottles

. . . bath scrunchies

NO! NO! **NO**! THINK PENELOPE! **THINK!!!**

In my rage at my own idiocy . . . bath scrunchies as a WEAPON(!) . . . my eyes suddenly shift to the back of the flush.

I see it . . . LYSOL!

That might work, it was certainly better than nothing. Better than scrunchies anyway. If nothing else I can spray it in his eyes.

Worst case I can chuck it at his head.

Okay Lysol . . . I pray in my head . . . time to save my ass.

Slowly I extend my arm, listening intently for the return of the shuffling.

The hall is silent.

And as much as I'd love to assume that I was imagining things . . . I wasn't.

My fingers slide around the shiny green can. I cough softly, hoping to make my prolonged stay at the sink seem logical.

Once the can is in my grasp, I slowly pull my hand back and raise my eyes to the mirror again.

Though my glasses are on the bedside table I can make out a shape . . . the reflection of a figure.

"Hello Penelope."

As my scream echoes through the tile room, I spin around.

OH SHIT!

My heart's galloping like a stallion. I can't catch my breath. This dark, hulking figure that just spoke . . . that knows my NAME(!) . . . is standing only a few feet back from my bathroom door.

HE WAS WATCHING ME! HE WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME!

Though I can't see any features . . . he has no face . . . I can see something in his hand.

Something big . . . something long.

An axe.

My screams become shrieks of mortal terror. I've seen the crime scene photos. I know instantly who is it is that's come to my door.

The clown.

OH SWEET JESUS . . . the tears begin to pour down my face . . . IT'S THE CLOWN!!!

He has a body count in the hundreds. Torture . . . mutilation . . . and what he did to Haley!

OH CHRIST! WHAT HE DID TO HALEY!!!!

They had to put her down like a dog. The can of Lysol in my hand seems laughably pathetic. I know that I should raise my arm up and spray it in his face, but all I can picture is Haley in the hospital.

Taking up only half the bed.

As he steps closer . . . the dragging sound is his left leg . . . it's a limp . . . I take note that I'm still screaming.

But I can't seem to stop . . . because he won't stop coming closer.

He's stepping over the threshold . . . WHY DIDN'T I SHUT THE DOOR?!

Of all my big plans that should have been the most obvious!

Now it's too late. And now he's close enough that I can see his smile.

It's painted on.

My mind begins to splinter. My screams morph from simple terror to downright hysteria.

And then that fuzzy blade in front of me starts to swing and I hear words come from far away.

"At least Derek put up a fight."

* * *

_A/N 2: Yes, I know, that's just wrong to cut it there. But remember Snake Pit, an axe swinging at your head isn't always an automatic out. But you will have to wait to find out what happens to Garcia because somebody else will be up next :)_

_As to the timing, remember it took Dave a certain amount of time to travel from the Metro area to the crime scene, it would have been an equal amount of time for the clown to go the other way so he had time to get set up before anybody knew what happened. _

_The bloody mary prompt, I don't know if I picked it or Kavi but I do know that the moment I saw it I pictured Garcia seeing something fuzzy in the reflection of the mirror that made her start to scream. And it would have had been Garcia or Hotch to use this prompt because those are the only ones I know that wear contacts or glasses and it had to be a fuzzy image. _

_Again, not making this a focus, but I'll probably get the Reid one up in the short term. Then it'll slide back to the backburner again. Sorry! There are just so many things I'm juggling that there isn't time to do everything all at once!_

_Now I know this is not my biggest 'crowd pleaser' :) but if you are still reading this, please do drop me a line. Just curious ;)_


	5. A Hole in the World

**Author's Note**: You guys are really lucky I had a very bad day because I was definitely in the right mindset to clean this up.

This is all Reid, takes place a few hours after we left Garcia in the bathroom.

* * *

**Challenge # 11**

Show: Star Trek – The Next Generation

Title Challenge: Who Watches the Watchers?

* * *

_Reid's POV_

**A Hole In the World**

I don't know how I'm supposed to do this.

Right now I'm standing in front of Derek's car. I'm two feet back from the trunk rubbing my hand across my mouth.

There are four deputies, two state troopers and a five person FBI crime scene team standing just beyond the perimeter of the yellow tape. Photographs need to be snapped, measurements need to be taken, evidence needs to be collected.

But all of those people are they're just standing there.

Waiting.

And they're waiting because they need for me to give them the all clear to come in and join me.

But instead of telling these busy people . . . half of whom were pulled from their beds an hour ago solely for this purpose . . . that they can begin their work, I've just been staring at Derek's car. I've been staring for close to a minute.

Derek's dead.

Those two words come flying at me as they've been doing repeatedly since I received the call from Rossi. That call was almost two hours ago. But still the words won't compute.

'_Derek's dead'_ is just a phrase. It has no meaning or emotional connotation.

Like if I heard a celebrity died. I know the name. I know the face. I know what death is. But still I can't force a connection to be made between my heart and my head.

Because Derek can't be dead.

Derek doesn't die. He's invincible.

He's like Hotch.

At the thought of my former chief, I feel a familiar pain in my chest.

A sense of loss.

Okay, so I know that I am still capable of feeling something. But my sadness over Hotch and Emily going away is different. Dave said that they're okay now, that they're safe.

That they just had a baby.

Those are good things. And after the horrors that they suffered, those are the things that they deserve to have.

So though I miss them . . . and though I'm sad that I can't see them anymore . . . I'm also happy for them.

Though sadness and happiness are conflicting emotions, I'm still able to function in that state of being.

But if I allow the news of Derek's death to permeate that deeply, if I allow that connection between my heart and my head . . . I will no longer be in a functional state of being.

I'll be broken.

Because Emily and Derek were my touchstones. My sister and my brother.

How can one of them die if I don't have the other to lean on?

Perhaps if I had seen Morgan's body I would have accepted his death by now. But Dave wouldn't allow it. He wouldn't even allow me to stop at that crime scene. He wouldn't even let me get as close as the bathroom where they found the deputy. I had to drive around the long way.

He said that I could go there after . . . my thoughts suddenly stutter . . . after they removed Derek's body.

As those last two words come back to me my eyes begin to water.

He said body.

The connection is beginning. The threads are winding themselves together. Derek is no longer a person.

Derek is now a body.

Grief begins to swell, but now that it's arrived, I realize that I have no use for it at that moment. Grief won't help me find his killer. Grief will cloud my judgment, grief will mar my vision. Even now my eyes are filling with tears. The scene is becoming blurry.

Crap.

I blink once, twice, I don't want to cry in front of these men and women. They aren't my people. This is not their grief.

My team . . . my family . . . they're the only ones that could understand. The only ones I would share this with.

At the thought of my family . . . and the knowledge that our numbers are now diminished even further . . . I feel a flood of shame.

They are strong.

All of them, collectively and individually, they're the strongest people I've ever met. They have to be to do this work. To come at it like pit bulls over and over again. The things in the dark . . . the things that the rest of the world run screaming from . . . that's what they chase. They run towards them. They touch them, talk to them.

Connect with them.

And right now I know that I am failing my team. I don't feel strong.

I feel weak, ineffectual . . . uncertain of my role here.

Am I a man grieving his brother? Or am I an FBI agent working a crime scene?

I don't know . . . my hand comes to my mouth as I choke back a sob . . . I don't know who I am right now!

Then suddenly I picture the others in this moment.

Hotch, Emily, JJ, Dave . . . my eyes start to tear again . . . Derek.

What would THEY do? What would they do in this moment where I am now feeling lost and uncertain?

The questions come to me . . . but I already know the answers. They would put aside their grief.

And they would work.

They would find the UNSUB, and they would get justice for our dead brother.

So that . . . I take a deep breath and then another and another . . . that is what I will do too.

As I feel my focus returning, I begin to feel their strength as though they were beside me. The other men have taught me things that are coming back to me now.

_. . . set your jaw Reid. Hold your body straight. You can be afraid but you have to hide your fear from them. It's a weapon they'll use against you._

That was Hotch. The man never flinched, never backed down. That day in the prison he was prepared to rip a serial killer apart with his bare hands. It was terrifying . . . yet exhilarating.

The man possessed a level of strength I could only aspire to achieve.

_. . . look strong kid, slide your holster back, don't leave your weapon exposed. _

Derek of course. Always about my weapon, always about diminishing my vulnerabilities. Always pushing . . . pushed . . . I swallow as my brain makes the tense correction . . . he always _pushed_ me harder than I thought I could go.

_. . . it doesn't matter if you're the smartest one in the room Spencer, you have to look like the strongest one too._

That last one was Dave. Dave is now the only mentor I have left. And he's the one that wanted me down here at Derek's car. Figuring out what happened, why he was out walking.

And now it's time to stop . . . as Dave would say . . . fucking around, and do what he told me to do.

So I shift my weight, throw back my shoulders, set my jaw, and let my thumb glide over the grip of my gun.

_Now_ I know what I am. I'm an FBI agent working a crime scene. That is WHO I am.

That is what I do.

My grief is pushed away as my eyes shift over the scene. Looking at it to see what others would miss.

Then suddenly I see something no one could miss.

A pool of gasoline. From the stains on the ground I can see that most of it has evaporated in the morning sun, but still . . . there's very clearly a faint line leading back down the road.

I drop to my haunches to look under the car . . . the fuel line's been cut.

Son of a . . . my anger begins to rise up . . . Morgan was driven off the side of the road.

He was driven off the road and hunted down like an animal.

Anger morphs into a blinding rage as my adrenal glands begin to fire . . . somebody will PAY for this!

There is a word . . . a concept . . . that my mentors have taught me. They call it justice. Righting wrongs, making people pay for their crimes. It's the reason they all chose this work. I don't know why I chose this work. Perhaps it was because of that dead little boy. The boy I saw when I was six.

Perhaps it was because of him. Perhaps not.

But either way I didn't come to this career looking to find justice. Which is good, because I don't want justice.

I want vengeance.

Fortunately they are not mutually exclusive concepts.

The rage has focused my thoughts. The synapses are firing at an incredible speed, limited only by the time it takes for the chemical reactions to scream through my body. Mentally I'm processing the entire scene at once.

_How many gallons of gasoline would have been in the tank? How far would Morgan have traveled before the engine began to sputter and die? How long would he have waited in the car before he decided to chance the walk? Where was the best place to ambush him? How many miles back do we need to go to see where this chain of events began? _

I spin on my heel and turn to look at the men and women beyond the yellow tape. They're still watching me.

My jaw twitches. I feel strength coursing through my veins. My grief is still with me . . . I know that it will stay with me always . . . but it's just a dull ache in my chest.

An ache that I have to ignore for now.

This is it. This is the moment where it will all come together. Where we'll begin to gather the clues to catch who did this to him.

Catch him and make him pay.

"You," I point at the lead FBI tech as I yell over the yellow tape, "get in here!"

I know I'm being rude, but right now I don't care. As the woman . . . Agent Ramirez is her name . . . hurries over I point to the puddle on the ground.

"The fuel line's been cut. I want the whole underside of the car dusted for prints. Check the composition of the gasoline that's left, see if that was contaminated as well. Once you're done with that you're going to meet me at another scene. Agent Morgan's cabin is 47.2 miles away and I believe that's where this happened. We're going to treat that as the first scene, this one as the second, and the place where his, his . . ." I swallow over the bile in my throat, "his body was found as the third. Locard's Exchange Principle says that his killer had to have left evidence at one or all of those locations."

The woman's eyes are wide as she nods vehemently, "understood sir," then her voice hardens.

"I promise you that we'll find something that will lead back to his killer."

Her eyes catch with mine and she gives me a look.

One that reminds me of Emily.

And then she turns away and her voice is cold as I hear her murmur under her breath, "nobody does this to one of our people and gets away with it."

Hearing her words . . . for just a moment . . . I want to cry.

I had forgotten that we weren't alone in this. It's not just me and the remnants of my team that are searching for Derek's killer. Because this attack wasn't just on Morgan or the Unit.

It was on all of us.

Every person who wakes up in the morning and puts on a sidearm and a badge. These people . . . I watch them finally begin their work . . . these people take these things very personally.

Because it could have been any one of us.

Okay then . . . I blink away the tears as I step over to the yellow tape . . . this part will be done right.

After I'm sure that everything is being addressed at the scene I slip my phone out and dial Dave's number.

It rings once and the line drops. I try again . . . and again, trying to get a signal.

Finally Dave picks up. The line is staticky but I can just make out his voice. I think he's asking me where the hell I've been. Telling me that he's been trying to reach me. Before I can explain about the connection the line drops again.

FUCK!

I move to the other corner of the taped area and call him once more.

"What did you find Reid?"

This time his voice . . . though it sounds hollow and far away . . . is clear. But the urgency in his tone . . . and his earlier questions . . . lead me to believe that thus far he's found nothing on his end. So I begin to explain about the fuel line and the evaporating puddle I found on the ground.

Dave is quiet the whole time I'm talking and when I'm done silence continues to be the only sound coming through the phone.

It's taking him too long to respond and that's making me nervous.

"Rossi?" I ask worriedly, "has something else happened?"

For a moment there's still nothing and my nerves begin to fray.

Just before I'm about to ask again . . . he speaks. But rather than answering me directly he asks me two questions.

"So you think Morgan's killer knew about his cabin? That this attack was set in motion before he even left home?"

"Yes," I answer immediately, "I do. Does that mean something to you?"

Why isn't he answering MY questions!? Why does he just keep asking his own!?

Dave clears his throat before he speaks again. His voice is now grave.

"There are two agents on their way down to meet you. They're going to pick you up and they're going to stick with you like glue. You take them, the troopers, the deputies, and the techs with you back to Morgan's cabin. You're not to go anywhere by yourself," his voice hardens, "do you understand me Spencer? NOWHERE! You are to go NOWHERE by yourself. If you have to take a piss, somebody's going to be to be standing next to you staring at the wall."

"DAVE!" I'm starting to near total panic, "**WHAT** HAPPENED?!"

My screaming has caught the attention of the entire crime scene and everyone stops what they're doing to stare at me.

I see fear on their faces.

Other people's emotions are not something I can handle at the moment so I turn away from them to stare into the woods. I'm looking at a rotted pine tree as Rossi's voice floats back through the line.

The static is coming back.

"I'm with two other agents right now. We're on our way back to the city. I got a call from the Montgomery County's Sheriff's Department," he pauses, "they're at an apartment building in Silver Spring."

He pauses again and this time I know it's for me to catch up. Silver Spring that's . . . my jaw drops.

_GARCIA! OH JESUS CHRIST, GARCIA!_

"WHAT HAPPENED!? IS SHE ALL RIGHT?!"

I can hear the shake in my voice.

Fear.

This night is being ruled by one emotion after another and now fear has taken hold.

As the line begins to fade in and out Rossi starts talking more quickly.

". . . received a series of 911 calls about an hour ago. Neighbors report… hearing quote, 'shrieks of mortal terror.' Nobody wanted to go investigate so they checked their locks and started calling the police. A few of them were still on the line, staring out their windows when they saw a figure running from the building. He was . . ."

Dave stops. Stops completely, and for a moment I think the line's gone dead . . . but I can hear his breath. It's heavy and fast.

He's terrified.

And David Rossi does not frighten easily. So I stand there behind that yellow crime scene tape, smelling the fragrance of wild flowers as I wait. The cold tendrils of fear have climbed up my back.

Even in the heat I can feel the little hairs on the back of my neck are standing up.

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Finally Dave comes back again . . . but dear God in heaven do I wish that he'd stayed quiet.

"He had an axe."

That's what Rossi said . . . and that's what causes me to drop to my knees. One hand hits the ground, which is the only thing that keeps me from falling over completely.

. . . an axe . . . an axe . . . an axe . . . an axe . . . an axe . . .

His words keep rolling in my head. The horror of it washing over me.

OH GOD . . . HE'S BACK!

THE CLOWN'S BACK!

I ignore Rossi's voice yelling through the line asking if I'm still there. I have to ignore him because I'm frozen, suddenly picturing the whole night from beginning to end. It comes to me in pictures . . . flashes.

Like crime scene photos.

Morgan being stalked by this creature that we've been hunting for over a year. It circles around his cabin watching him through the windows as he prepares for his trip home. It takes a sharpened blade and slices through the fuel line. It goes on ahead, murders the deputy, steals his uniform and his cruiser. And then it lies in wait for Derek's engine to die. It probably knew exactly where it was going to happen. Then it stalks him for miles.

Miles.

My soul aches as I picture the terror of my friend. I wonder if he knew who is executioner was. If the clown ever got out of the car.

I hope he didn't. For everything that I just pictured . . . the horror of it all . . . somehow knowing it was the clown . . . knowing what he's capable of . . . makes it all so much worse.

Finally I focus back in on the phone still clutched in my hand. Rossi's voice can still be heard yelling for me to answer him as I lift the cell to my ear again.

I cut him off. "I'm here Dave. I'm here." I take a breath, trying to pull up my professional shields again, "call me when you get to Garcia's. I'll finish up here and then I'll meet you there." Then a thought comes to me and I ask in a near panic, "wait, where's JJ?!"

Rossi responds immediately, relief clear in his tone.

"She was already at the Bureau, that's where I'd sent her when I woke her up. But I assigned her a detail, and we're moving her family to a safe house. Right now it's all FBI, but we're calling in the Marshalls' to get babysitters for everyone."

Then his voice hardens, "I'm serious Spencer, I want you on your way back to Quantico with lights and sirens as soon as you're done at the cabin. As much as I'd love to pull you from the field now we have absolutely nothing to go on and I'm hoping that maybe you'll get something that will help us track this fucker."

As I push myself up from the ground I nod vehemently, "right, I promise Dave. As soon as I'm done we're heading home," my voice catches, "you have no word on Garcia?"

Though I pray that she's alive . . . alive and in one piece . . . history would indicate that in a physical confrontation with the clown, that is the least likely outcome.

Suddenly I flash on Haley and in my recoil I have to physically will down the coffee in my otherwise empty stomach.

NO . . . I scream in my head . . . NO SPENCER, YOU WILL **NOT** PICTURE SUCH THINGS UNTIL YOU HAVE PROOF THAT SUCH THINGS HAVE HAPPENED!

If I go down that road, I won't be able to function any longer. That's why Rossi refused to let me see Derek's body. He needs me to work, and now that we know who is behind this, it's vitally important that my brain stay razor sharp.

Of course with grief and terror competing for dominant control at the moment, razor sharp is probably not an attainable goal.

Really . . . I take a few breaths as I listen to Rossi say that he knows nothing but what he's already told me . . . I just need to stay on my toes.

Rossi signs off with an emotional, "the last time he was spotted was over two hours ago so he could be anywhere right now. You watch your back son."

Though he can't see me, I immediately nod as I respond with a broken, "you too sir."

And then he's gone.

I turn to see that my audience has remained throughout my conversation. And I want to scream at them to keep working.

But it's not in me.

The earlier agitation I was feeling as I snapped at Agent Ramirez is gone. These people have now all been pulled into this nightmare. The clown is going after members of the team and these people have to stay here and work with me.

I feel a wave of guilt and regret as I remember what we learned too late last time.

That the clown sees everything.

Everyone.

And at his whim, anyone could be used as an example. All of these people are now potentially marked for a gruesome, unspeakable death.

So my tone is gentle as I ask them to please go back to work, that we have another scene to process. And that we need to hurry. They want to ask me questions, but they're professionals and they already know that they don't want to hear the answers.

They turn back to their evidence collection, their photographs, their measurements. But I see the change in their stance. Before they were just angry. They wanted justice for their dead colleague.

Now they're afraid.

And I feel as though I should apologize . . . but then I remember . . . it's not my fault.

My eyes burn as I pull out my weapon. Slowly I roll the barrel, checking the rounds one by one.

They all look good.

And that's all I can do to protect myself. Make sure my gun works and . . . I remind myself again . . . stay on my toes.

That's the most important thing. I have to be smarter than he is. And ordinarily being the smartest one in the room is not an issue for me. But this particular UNSUB is not like anyone else.

He's a demon from hell.

Those were Emily's words . . . demon from hell. That's what she said the day they came to say goodbye for the last time. That the clown wasn't a man, that he was a demon sent from hell. And that we had to remain vigilant. Because . . . when it came down to catching this UNSUB . . . that all of our profiling was for shit.

The rules didn't apply to him.

Remembering her words that day should have just filled me with despair. That there was no hope of stopping him, let alone catching him. But instead I feel surprisingly . . . emboldened.

Because right now . . . when everything is falling apart . . . throwing out the rule book is in and of itself a plan of action.

We'll set a trap.

We'll discard all of the psychological nuances of our usual investigation and we'll go back to the simplest approach to police work.

The simplest approach to capturing an offender.

If a criminal wants to commit a crime then you set up the circumstances that allow him to commit said crime.

We do it for drug dealers and prostitutes . . . and even terrorists. Just because it's not typically done with a serial killer doesn't mean that the principle doesn't still apply.

If anything his bloodlust should make this easier. Because his goal here is obviously to lure out Hotch and Emily. They're the ones that he really wants. We're just a means to an end. And he's going to come for us no matter what.

And I don't want to die by pieces.

So we'll go on the offense. We'll set up a situation that he won't be able to resist. A challenge. Something where he thinks he has the upper hand.

And then . . . a vengeful fury rises up from my soul . . . we'll cut him down like a dog in the street.

All right . . . I look over the men and woman around me . . . this is a good plan.

'_It's your only plan,_' a traitorous voice whispers from the back of my brain.

But I dismiss it.

One good plan is all we need. And as I begin to work out the details in my head I move further away from the corner of the yellow tape by the woods.

Though the clown is not omnipresent, I don't know that after he left . . . I flinch . . . Garcia, that he didn't immediately head back down to the site of Morgan's death once again. He knows that we're now divided into multiple crime scenes.

This would be the time for him to strike again.

As that thought comes to me I feel the icy fingertips of fear tapping on my spine once more. My eyes frantically run over the small crowd of local enforcement outside the yellow tape. Of course they're all strangers but I'm looking for anyone who doesn't belong. He already killed a deputy and stole his vehicle in order to commit an attack on one of us.

There's nothing to say that he wouldn't do it again.

But fortunately . . . unfortunately . . . it would have a coup to catch him here . . . I see nobody that strikes a nerve. There's nobody standing alone. Everyone's with a partner.

Everybody here knows somebody else here.

And they all look afraid.

But that doesn't mean that my theory doesn't hold weight.

So as the technicians continue to painstakingly do their job, I continue to frantically scan the area around us.

Time rolls by as the sky grows brighter and brighter.

Ten minutes rolls into fifteen . . . and then twenty. And I try to will these people to work faster. Though it's nearing six thirty and the sun is up, burning off the remaining haze, I can't stop the panic that's roiling in the back of my brain.

We're too exposed here.

And as I suddenly hear the rumble of another vehicle heading for us my heart rate accelerates as my hand falls down to the grip of my gun.

It could be anyone but . . . knowing what I know . . . only a fool would assume no danger.

My paranoia doesn't go unnoticed, and I see the troopers and the deputies mimic my movements as their hands also fall to their weapons. Then the FBI agents do the same.

All attention turns towards this unknown . . . unmarked . . . vehicle.

It slows to a stop twenty feet up the road and one of the troopers looks to me . . . I'm in charge here.

I tip my head and he and his partner cautiously take a few steps closer to the sedan.

_It's too far away._

That's my first thought . . . why would anyone stop up there? Why not continue down to the scene?

_The windows are tinted black._

That's my second thought. That's the thought that makes brain start whirling . . . why would you be driving around with blackened windows?

For a moment all is quiet. The only sound is that of the still running engine.

And then the driver's side door starts to open and my panic spikes.

I scream, "STAY IN THE VEHICLE! PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE STEERING WHEEL!"

The door freezes, it's only opened an inch . . . for a moment our entire little corner of the world has stopped moving.

And then I hear a voice call back.

"I'M LOOKING FOR AN AGENT SPENCER REID. I WORK OUT OF THE RICHMOND OFFICE AND I WAS SENT HERE ON A PROTECTIVE DUTY."

All eyes turn to me . . . what now?

The adrenaline is racing through my system. Rossi said he was sending TWO agents to meet me.

Not one.

The voice sounded nervous . . . unsure. But is that an act? I have no proof that it was beyond a discomfort that I can't explain.

There was a lilting quality to his cadence that I didn't like.

Then my heart skips a beat as I replay this man's words . . . he didn't identify himself. He claimed he was working out of Richmond but he didn't give his name. That's the first thing that we're trained to do.

Identify yourself by name and title.

Not location.

_OH FUCK! WHOEVER THIS PERSON IS, HE'S DEFINITELY __**NOT**__ AN FBI AGENT!_

And he's here for me.

My heartbeat skitters again before it begins to hammer uncontrollable. Though I know it's physiologically impossible, I feel as though it could pound through my chest.

This is NOT my specialty! I don't DO field work!

Derek does.

_BUT DEREK'S NOT HERE JACKASS!! YOU __**KNOW **__WHAT TO DO!! NOW __**STEP**__ UP!_

The internal castigation is enough to break me of my stance . . . I'm still terrified of making the wrong call here . . . but action needs to be taken.

And it needs to be taken now while there's still some semblance of us keeping control of what's happening.

So I lift the yellow tape as I simultaneously remove my weapon from it's holster. I've never been so grateful for the years that Hotch spent with me at the range.

I'm now a dead shot at thirty yards.

My weapon comes up and again the group around me takes their cue. And as one movement six revolvers and five pistols make their appearance.

My breath is ragged but I know that I can do this.

I was TRAINED to do this!

My first signal is to motion for the four deputies to begin to circle around the vehicle. The troopers are still frozen in place ten feet back from the front of the car.

There is still silence coming from the stranger and that's making me very nervous. Even if he wasn't an agent, if he was just some guy . . . a reporter or something . . . then he'd be screaming his head off right now not to shoot.

Because this . . . as nearly a dozen armed law enforcement officers are pointing weapons at you . . . is the moment to start pleading your case.

But he's not doing that.

As far as I can tell, he's not doing anything. And this begins to distract me as I try to come up with possible scenarios for this behavior. But then suddenly a little voice in the back of my head reminds me that I've left the rear flank exposed.

The voice sounds like Hotch.

As I always have . . . as I always will . . . I immediately obey my chief. I motion for the FBI agents to cover the woods and the road from the other direction.

They too obey immediately . . . chain of command is what keeps us alive . . . but I can see the nerves on their faces just before they turn away. And that's when I remember that these people usually spend their days in a lab.

They aren't trained for field work either. Great.

_That's all right though Spencer_ . . . Hotch's calm voice comes to me again . . _. they're all field rated or they wouldn't have been allowed to be on call tonight. _

With this thought my anxiety about their abilities fades away.

They can take of themselves.

I turn my attention back to the car ahead of me. It's an older model four door American sedan . . . a Buick.

Beige.

There are no plates on the front. And it does my racing heart no good to see a clean spot where one has recently been removed.

My eyes frantically scan the bumper, the grill and the front tires. But as hard as I'm looking, I see no evidence of possible involvement in what happened to Derek tonight.

I note that the deputies have moved into place . . . two at the rear, two at the sides. All keeping a solid ten foot gap between them and this unknown interloper.

As I catch the eye of the deputy at the rear I see him shake his head.

No plates there either. Yeah, this just gets better and better.

My jaw twitches as I debate the next move.

But then my next move is made for me.

The trooper closest to the car suddenly yells out, "HE'S SHUTTING THE DOOR"

Both of the troopers begin screaming for him to turn off the vehicle. In their single minded focus . . . retain control of the perpetrator . . . they forget about the buffer zone. And as they're screaming . . . holding their weapons out in front of them . . . they're beginning to take a few steps closer to the car.

As they move closer, the deputies involuntarily follow suit.

They're closing the circle.

But then the engine begins to gun . . . and all of a sudden I know.

It's him.

There's no doubt in my mind that it's the clown. And to my horror I realize that we've just made a terrible mistake.

As I open my mouth to scream for them to get away, the car suddenly lurches forward.

That's not what they were expecting.

As the first shots are fired into the windshield I watch in horror as he clips both troopers and one of the deputies.

NO! NO! THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!

But it is.

And then everyone begins firing. Everyone but me.

But it doesn't stop him. The trooper on the right tries to get up and run, but he gets crushed as the sedan rams into him again.

I can see bullet holes in the metal but the glass isn't shattering and the car's still moving. And then I remember Hotch's theory that he wears a vest. If he wears a vest on his body then he sure as hell didn't show up here with anything less than bullet resistant glass.

We need a head shot! But you can't get a fucking head shot when you can't see his fucking head!

My brain is running faster than it ever has before, trying to recall every scrap of information we've compiled on this UNSUB.

CONSERVE AMMO!

Hotch and Emily taught us that one. And though we're not stuck in the middle of an insane asylum, we're just as isolated out here in the woods. He certainly has no chance to take out all of us, but he could take out half.

He could easily take out half.

Especially because nobody's really aiming, everyone's just firing randomly into the car trying to stop him. I've already seen at least two people reload. And nobody carries more than two spare clips.

If that.

So I scream and wave my hands, "STOP FIRING! RUN INTO THE TREES!"

But they don't listen to me.

Because they have officers down on the ground, they can't get to them . . . and you don't leave anyone behind.

This I understand, but if they don't leave them everyone's dead. These people don't know what's happening.

I do though. He set a trap for us. He could have simply rammed Derek's car to get him off the road and then killed him as soon as he exited the vehicle.

But he didn't do that. He didn't do that for two reasons.

First, he loves the chase. If he can't hunt before the kill then the kill means nothing.

But second, he wanted the resources split. He wanted the scenes to be broken apart . . . TWO isolated areas . . . not just one. He would have known EXACTLY where Derek's car would die.

In the middle of nowhere.

Then he went and attacked Garcia to split the scenes again. He knew that at least one of us would race up to Maryland. And that person would take a full crew with him.

Our backup.

All of these thoughts race through my brain in lightning speed. Less than a minute has passed since the car rammed into those troopers. He's now roaring backwards, trying to mow down the fleeing deputies.

One dives into the ditch, narrowly missing the fender that was going to take out his legs.

This is what happened to Derek.

This is EXACTLY what happened to Derek! But now the clown has more victims to chase.

It's like the shooting gallery at the county fair except this guy's brought a Buick instead of a toy gun.

If only I could get them to leave the officers on the ground we might all have a chance.

Three dead was better than twelve.

But they keep trying to get to their fallen comrades. And as I see the agents . . . who had previously just been firing at the car . . . suddenly move to help the howling victims on the ground, I scream at them.

"NO!! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! THEY'RE ALREADY DEAD!! IF YOU TRY TO HELP THEM THEN YOU'RE DEAD TOO!!"

Torn between duty and self preservation Ramirez and her group look at me in terror. And then she asks one question.

"IS IT HIM?!"

Everyone knows who the clown is. That he took an agent's ex-wife and mutilated her. The case is infamous in the Bureau.

"YES," I scream again as I grab her arm and begin shoving her, "IT'S HIM! NOW RUN INTO THE TREES!"

I wish we could get to the vehicles but they were being used to block off the scene so they're much too far away. Derek's car is providing a little bit of protection for those of us still behind the tape. It's a buffer that we can move around. But with the clown still behind the wheel, trying to get to even the closest cruiser would be a suicide run.

The trees are our only hope.

Finally . . . as the reality of the situation sinks in . . . the agents obey me as they make a mad dash to the forest. Ramirez's windbreaker is still clutched in my fingers as I yank her along behind me.

I'm at least a foot taller than she is.

Once we're all well back behind the tree line I stop short at a large oak.

"Freeze," I yell out in a harsh whisper to the rest of Ramirez's people, "get over here!"

We can't afford to split out numbers again.

As they run to our location by the huge mossy oak, I yank out my blackberry.

No signal.

I look to the others and I see the same look of dismay on their faces as they look down at their electronic devices.

All useless now.

It took forever to get a halfway decent call with Rossi. Clearly the woods are blocking what little signal there was.

We stand there, hearts racing as we listen to the screams coming from the road. I know they want to go back and save them.

Hell, I want to go back too.

But we can't.

We have no way of calling for help and as I whisper harshly for everyone to do a weapons check I see that most of them are down a clip.

I look over their terrified faces and I suddenly feel burdened with responsibility. I don't know how Rossi and Hotch do it.

Make decisions and then order people to follow them.

"We're going to have to move further into the woods and hope that we come out to a cabin or maybe another access road," I say with a calm I don't feel, "because once he finishes up out there he's probably going to get out of the car. And he's probably going to be carrying a big axe."

As I see their terror morph to horror, I give them a shaky smile.

"I know. And all I can say is, if he gets close enough to swing, make sure you save a bullet for yourself."

And with that . . . the only sage advice I can offer . . . I turn, leading them into the trees.

* * *

_A/N 2: Hey, look! I didn't kill Spencer! His big brain kept him alive . . . for now ;)_

_It was kind of interesting being Reid here in this world. As many years pass on the show, you still always see him kind of as a kid. He's the youngest and the others will always have more to teach him. But what if he's suddenly left all alone? If the others are taken away and he needs to function out on his own. So he hears their voices in his head, guiding him along, coloring his decisions. But I wanted him in the end of this, to fall back on himself. The voice he listened to that saved his life was his own. I thought that was important to show the growth of the character._

_I see the clown having this whole year to plan his vendetta against Hotch and what he would have done to prepare to strike. It was clear from the Snake Pit that he loves the hunt most of all. So I see him (in a fury that Hotch and Emily and Jack got away) stalking the rest of them for all these months, figuring out their routines, where they lived, where they vacationed, where they had lunch, got coffee, just figuring out them. So that when he put this plan into action he'd be anticipating their moves before they made them. Divide and conquer was the approach he used at the asylum, so that's the approach he's using now but on a more insidious scale. Keep breaking their numbers into smaller groups and then strike. Play on people's weaknesses for one another. Their sense of duty and brotherhood, he wounds one of them, he knows they can't leave a man behind, and he knows that's what will get them killed. But Reid used his head, saw what was happening as it began to unfold, and at least dragged his people away._

_Hopefully they'll make out a little better than the deputies and troopers are. I'm sure somebody got to a squad car and a radio though ;)_

_Next time around you will learn Garcia's fate. And I'd love to keep some momentum here but you know I have so little RL time to write and so many competing interests with different ideas. This one will just be a slow row across the river. _

_Though please do let me know how you think it's coming along. I had said I wrote this first person as an exercise but I had NO idea until I started putting it up how hard it would be to keep a complicated plot moving under those circumstances. Really, that is the point of the exercises though, to learn lessons. And I learned not to do a giant story with substantive scope as first person unless I had oodles of free time to devote to it :)_

_And yes, we will get to H/P eventually but this isn't their part of the story. _

_Little late addition A/N: I got a review that made a good point about trying to get to the cars versus running into the trees. So I went back up and added a line in to clarify the reason Reid dismissed that option. I thought I'd better described the physical layout of the scene to show why they weren't an option. But I hadn't done that before, I did now :)_


	6. When It Isn't Like It Should Be

**Author's Note**: Long time since we've been here but Halloween of course is what put me in the mindset to get back this.

This chapter is JJ, where we're opening with her is shortly after the time that Reid would have been arriving at the crime scene. And I'd give the prompt here full credit for the scene as is. It was a "guiding force" :)

**

* * *

Story Title Prompt Set #1**

Author: Stephen King

Title Challenge: Autopsy Room 4

_

* * *

JJ's POV – Shortly after Reid's arrival at the crime scene_

**When It Isn't Like It Should Be**

'_I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.'_

Though my steps are dragging, the mantra repeats over and over in my head as I slowly walk through the underground passages of the Academy that lead down to the morgue. It's still early in the day . . . barely six thirty in the morning . . . so fortunately there are only a few people around to see my red rimmed eyes and ruddy cheeks.

I've been crying almost continuously since Dave woke me a few hours ago. And though he made me swear to him that I'd drive straight to the office and stay in the bullpen . . . I didn't.

I couldn't.

Not once I got the call that Morgan's body was on it's way in to the morgue. For some reason I had to see for myself that he's really dead. But now that I've turned the last corner, now that I'm almost there, my confidence is leaving me. My mantra is failing me.

Maybe I can't do this.

So I stop.

And for a moment I just stand in the middle of the corridor taking slow deep breaths. This part of the campus isn't on the way to anything else, and at this time of day . . . with this kind of isolation . . . now that my footsteps have stopped echoing, the silence settles in.

It settles in like a fog.

It's so quiet that for a minute . . . just one . . . I allow myself to believe that this is just a horrible dream. That soon I'll hear the alarm buzzing in my ear and my eyes will pop open and I'll be staring across the room at the light creeping around the curtains. Will's arm will be wrapped around my waist and then he'll lean over me to punch his fist down, silencing the offending noise bleating out into our quiet bedroom. Silence will fill the air as it has just now, and then my man will kiss my cheek and whisper good morning. And then I'll roll over and smile before I give him a much better kiss than the one he gave me. And then one of us will go down to start the coffee and one of us will go in to check Henry. And then we'll shower and dress and my husband will go off to the Major Case Victims Unit of the Metropolitan Police Department, and I'll take our son to work with me at the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Our boy will spend his hours happily playing in a lockdown daycare while his parents immerse themselves in murders that have played out on stages both grand and small. It will just be a regular day. Perhaps not a regular day for a regular person, but a regular day for me.

'_That would be wonderful_,' I think sadly, _'absolutely wonderful.'_

But then one of the lab techs races by, nearly knocking me to the ground in her haste to get to wherever it is she's going. As my watery eyes follow after her, I see her white coat flapping, her red curls bouncing and the driplets of coffee she's leaving behind her.

They're a muddy brown trail on an otherwise pristine white concrete.

The real world comes crashing back to me again.

This is no horrible dream. This is a living nightmare. Worse even than the bombing in Boston, or the days searching the asylum, or even . . . I feel a stab of guilt invade my grieving heart . . . what happened to Haley.

Poor, poor Haley.

To this day my stomach still aches whenever I think of the agony she suffered. And there was once a point where I thought that the day that we found her in the trunk, the day we found out what had been done to her, was as bad as this job . . . as this life . . . would ever get.

It wasn't.

And it pains me to think that I want that horrible day back. Because at least on that day, the body in question wasn't my friend.

It wasn't my Morgan.

The tears begin to slide down my face again . . . I have to keep walking now. I have to see him. So I pick up my left foot and I place it back on the ground, and then I do the same with my right, and then my left again. Lather, rinse, repeat, over and over. And within seconds I've closed the remaining distance to the morgue's entrance.

Again though I stop, this time not to steel my courage, but instead to wipe the tears from my face and pull out what will hopefully pass as a professional demeanor to get me through the next thirty seconds. I need to sign in and state my business for the admin working the desk.

It would be nice if I didn't come off as a complete basket case as I performed those two small tasks.

Once I've at least dried the moisture from my face, I take a shallow breath and yank open the bay door. Three more steps takes me to the counter behind which sits the woman working the overnight shift. I know that she'll be leaving in less than an hour and the weariness is clear on her face.

She's already checked out.

That's fortunate for me because I don't want to make nice conversation, I just want to see my friend. So I pull my badge and I sign my name and I state my business. To my own ears my voice sounds steady, if slightly hoarse. Either way she doesn't question me. Not that she would have any grounds to anyway, I have every right to be here. Though admittedly the legality of my presence and the wisdom of my presence are two different things. And if this woman was paying this whole situation even a half a bit of attention, most likely she would suggest that as a colleague of the deceased that I wait and view the body with a technician or a doctor, or perhaps another agent. She would say that it was unwise for me to be there alone.

And she would be right.

But she doesn't say any of those things. Instead she utters just three words.

_Autopsy Room Four._

And then she goes back to the book she was reading when I walked up.

Realizing I've now been cleared to do the dumbest thing I've ever decided to do, I turn on my heel and start walking down the hall. I know where Autopsy Room Four is, I've been there before. I've been to all of them before. Lucky girl that I am, I once got to visit all of them on the very same day. That was the day we brought everyone home from Boston. That was a bad day too. But of course on that day I wasn't alone. Hotch was with me . . . my eyes begin to burn again . . . Derek too.

We came and paid our respects in private and then we went back to our office. And that's all I want to do right now, pay my respects in private, and then go back to my office. That's it.

This becomes my new mantra as I continue down the hall.

Like all of the autopsy suites down here, number four is designed for teaching new recruits about the messier aspects of forensic science. So to that end, before you get to the actual door to the room, there is a glass observation wall.

I stop when the transparency appears.

For a moment I stare down at the tips of my shiny brown boots. They're new and they have a three inch wedge heel. I bought them two weeks ago and I remember that Derek chuckled when he saw me in the break room. He said thatif I was trying to look taller that he could always make me a pair of stilts to wear around the office. When I scowled at him he just smirked and sauntered back over to his desk. Later that day I found a giant chocolate chip muffin in my office with a sticky note placed next to it.

_The boots make your legs look damn fine, but we still need to work on putting some boot in the booty. Eat up._

That day I had laughed as I peeled back the paper wrapping on my afternoon treat. But now as I think back on that memory, I begin to weep.

_How could he leave me like this? Doesn't he know that I can't do this job without him? We can't do this without him! Dave needs his partner, and Spencer needs his mentor, and Penelope needs her best friend. _

Grief overwhelms me and I fall to my knees with one whimpering thought . . . I need my brother.

That's the last cohesive thought I have for a moment as my body is suddenly wracked by uncontrollable sobbing. For just a second I foolishly think that my private breakdown will stay my personal business. But unfortunately only a couple minutes pass before the scene I'm making draws a crowd.

It's barely six thirty in the morning, so it's fortunately a very small crowd, but still that's enough shame to help me pull myself together. And then somebody helps me to my feet, and somebody else asks me why I'm there. Before I can respond, a third person recognizes me and puts two and two together. Then there is whispering and then soft platitudes, and then I'm being ushered back down the way I came.

Time to go.

The pathologist on duty is gently explaining that the body has just arrived and isn't fit for viewing. But that even if it was, that Agent Rossi had left explicit instructions that I was not allowed to see it.

At that news another wave of grief washes over me and I shove the good Samaritans away as I take off running. I slam through the bay doors and back out into the main corridor. The noise being made by my three inch tall wedge boots bounces off the walls.

The tears are again streaming down my face but it's still early so my embarrassment over being seen crying in public by even more strangers is limited to perhaps a dozen people. None of them know who I am and none of them try to stop me. So I just keep running, twisting around the corridors and up the stairwells, finally finding myself back on our floor.

After I swipe my badge I run through the still empty . . . still dark . . . bullpen and up the short staircase. There is no conscious thought driving my actions, I just race up the stairs and into the first office, slamming the door shut behind me.

'_I want Hotch!'_

The thought suddenly scream into my head as I . . . still sobbing . . . drop down to the floor of what was once his office. That's when I realize that perhaps it was a conscious decision on my part to choose the chief's office over my own. This is a space that brings me comfort. More specifically . . . I lift my head up and look around the room . . . the men that have sat behind that desk have brought me comfort.

Their presence lingers.

They've been my protectors. Gideon to Hotch to Rossi, but right now my grieving heart just wants Hotch. And there is no rational basis for this desire, except perhaps the ridiculous notion that if Hotch was here then things would be like they were before. Before Haley was butchered, before he and Emily had to go away.

Before Derek was murdered.

As though Hotch's mere presence could once again right all of those wrongs for me. Foolish thoughts from a foolish woman, I think bitterly. And mere seconds later a terrible guilt presses into me. I've just realized that my irrational wish for a man who is no longer a part of my life is a betrayal to a man who is.

Dave.

Dave is my leader now. Dave's the one who will get us through this.

He'll be our rock.

At that thought I realize I need to speak to him. Really I need to see him but he's still at the scene, so I'll have to make do with just hearing his voice. I pathetically wipe the tears from my face with one hand as I fumble in the pocket for my phone with the other.

As I pull the small silver device from my dress pants I see that I have a missed call from Dave.

No . . . my brow wrinkles as I open the call log . . . I have _four _missed calls from Dave. All in the space of the six minutes that I was most likely in the morgue. The reception's bad down there so it's not uncommon for calls to go straight to voicemail without so much as a single ring.

Feeling a stab of guilt dig into my overriding grief . . . I should have stayed in the office in case he needed me to do something . . . I hit last call received as I push myself up from the floor and wipe my face again. The phone barely rings once before I hear Dave's frantic machine gun of questions.

"Where are you? Are you all right? Why didn't you pick up your phone?"

His pitch is so loud that I have to pull the cell away from my ear . . . okay, he's clearly upset. And now I feel even worse about leaving my desk. Here he is on one of the worst days of his life off by himself working the death of one of his agents and when he called for me I wasn't here. Not only wasn't I here when he needed me, but I made him worry about me.

'_Both inconsiderate and cruel JJ,'_ I berate myself as I try to get my answers back to him before he has a heart attack.

"Yes, I'm still here," I shoot back quickly, "I'm standing in your office right now. I just got back from the um," my voice starts to thicken and I try to clear it, "the morgue, and I didn't hear the phone." I pause for a second as my tone softens, "I'm sorry for making you worry. What did you need?"

Before Dave answers there's a pause, and in that pause I hear sirens. They're loud and close and it occurs to me that there shouldn't be any cruisers screaming up to the crime scene Dave is at right now.

A worrisome tickle starts in my brain . . . where is he?

"_Are you on you still at the scene?"_

"_I want you to stay in my office with the door locked."_

Our sentences tumble over one another and it takes me a second to process what he's said . . ._ "I want you to stay in my office with the door locked."_

That little tickle turns to a shiver that begins to crawl along my spine . . . what the hell does he mean by that? My hand involuntarily slides up to rest on the butt of my revolver.

"What are you talking about?" I ask with a faint quiver in my voice. "Why do I have to stay in your office with the door locked?"

There's another momentary pause as I look nervously through the glass wall and down to the still darkened bullpen below. Ordinarily this quiet time found only very early or very late in the day is comforting.

Not today.

Today I wish the place was full of bustling noise and distraction, that it was so loud that I couldn't think straight. That would be nice . . . I step over to turn the lock on Dave's door . . . that would be very nice.

That would perhaps take down some of the goosebumps creeping along my skin.

Just as my hand falls back to my side, Dave's voice floats through the phone again. This time his tone has changed. It's not just worry and grief.

It's desperation.

"Honey, _please,_" I hear him plead softly, "just please do as I tell you. I know that the bullpen's still deserted right now, the whole God damn Academy is still deserted right now, and I don't want you going anywhere alone. I've called Shea and Lambert, they're on their way in now and they'll be staying with you until Spencer and I get back."

"Dave," my voice cracks, "what's happened? This isn't just about Morgan isn't? It's something else."

I hear him take a breath before he continues quietly. "Yes, it's something else. I'm on my way to Garcia's. Something's happened there too, I don't know what yet, but I'm afraid it's bad. I'm afraid it's very bad. But whatever it is," his voice starts to get husky, "I need to know that you're safe on base or I'm not going to be able to function there, okay?"

The tears begin to run down my face again as I whisper back.

"Okay," and then I sniffle as that wall of grief starts pressing against my heart again.

"Is Penelope dead too?"

I hate myself for asking the question . . . I hate that such a question has even been put out into the world . . . but I need to know.

But there's another pause, and this one goes on so long that I don't think he's going to answer me. But then he's saying that he doesn't know. That he doesn't really know much of anything yet and that he doesn't want to speculate. And though I don't think that he's lying to me . . . I don't think he's telling me the whole truth either.

And I want to push him, to make him tell me that thing that he's not, but for now I let it go. I'm already completely alone and scared shitless. There's really no reason to torture myself further. I know him, I know when he's back here in the office that he'll tell me everything.

He always does.

So for now I whisper a promise to stay right where I am. And in return for that vow I make him promise that he'll be careful and that he'll call me as soon as he can. Peace of mind for peace of mind, it's all we have right now. Just as those words have passed his lips we both hear the beep of call waiting.

It's Spencer, he says . . . and then he's gone.

Now I truly am alone. And though moments ago I was filled with only grief, now I'm filled with dread. All other emotions are shoved aside in the wake of this horrible tension now building, waiting to find out what's happened at Garcia's. And though part of me wants to be out there with Dave right now checking on my friend, the other part of me remembers why it is I'm not allowed in the field any longer.

Haley.

Her name alone is enough to squelch the other desires. Though I was never truly afraid of dying on the job, I know now that are some things far worse than simple death. Those things I fear perhaps as much as I do the death of my only child. So I push aside the agent part of my brain, the part that needs to 'do' something and instead I walk over to Dave's desk, pull out his chair and sit down.

Then I look back and forth between the two pictures he keeps on his desk. The team photo then . . . my gaze shifts to the other frame . . . the team photo now. But of course now . . . my eyes begin to fill as I stare at Derek and Garcia's smiling faces . . . now the team picture has changed yet again.

How much, I don't yet know. One thing is clear though, the next version will contain no smiling faces. And these smiling faces now are causing me nothing but pain. So with a wince and watery eyes I pick up the first and turn it face down on the desk. Then I do the same to the other.

It's easier that way.

Knowing that any attempts at busy work would be pointless, I pull my revolver out and check the clip. Then I place it on the empty blotter in front of me.

I lean back against the soft brown leather.

'_And now I wait.' _

_

* * *

A/N 2: Though this was technically only a small snippet of time, and technically nothing happened here that hadn't already been revealed elsewhere, I still thought it was a very necessary scene to move things forward. I've said it before, if I had to do over, writing these first person pieces to carry a lengthier story arc, I'd definitely get it all actually written out first. Unlike third person, it's not enough to simply know how the storyline goes to get this stuff up, you really have to go with the flow of who best to tell each part of the tale. Like I could have opened with Dave simply arriving at the crime scene to tell you Derek was dead, but the story would have lost something. So basically this is just going to have to take as long as it takes to get done but I do promise eventually I'll find the time to get all the chapters up. _

_Of course the thing that Dave didn't tell JJ was that he believes the clown is back. I see this Dave, the one that's in love with her from afar, being very overprotective and seeing no purpose to scaring the crap out of her until he knows that fact for sure. So he's sending protection details for her and her family and he'll tell her about them later after he's sure there's something to tell. If he'd told her then she would have been out the gates in a shot to get back to her family. It's not like Spencer who is also out in the field and needs to know what could be coming. JJ's safe and secure and all he'd be doing is torturing her as she sat alone waiting for news about Garcia. It's bad enough if you're worrying, it's worse still if you have something so very specific to worry about. _

_I know my reading audience on this one is much smaller than anything else I have going so thanks to everyone who keeps coming back here to take a chance on a very NOT crowd pleasing story :) And I do wish I could get this done for you faster, but it's emotionally a very difficult story to write. It's a very dark world and first person (trust me on this if you've never written it) can be quite draining. So it's just something I have to run with when I can. I'm hoping to get 2 more chapters up before the end of the year, though I'd be thrilled if I could just one more done! _

_**Side Note**__: Regular prompts, plus Christmas bonus went up today in both forums. And though I do feel completely horrible right now (day 3.5 of a really annoying cold), if I don't have to lie down and take another nap, I'm hopeful I can get one more story proofed and up tonight. Something much lighter than this :)_


	7. Snippets From Hell

**Author's Note**: Back again. Fair warning, this is a particularly upsetting chapter but if you've gotten this far, then you already know, this is overall a particularly upsetting story.

Also, again as with the last chapter, due credit to the prompt here. It's really what set the whole thread for the scene. And this is another Dave. It's about forty-five minutes after he got off the phone with JJ and Spencer.

**

* * *

Story Title Prompt Set #5**

Author: Greg Larsson

Title Challenge: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

_

* * *

Dave's POV – 45 minutes after the call with JJ_

**Snippets From Hell**

When you work closely with people for a long time, you learn a lot of things about them. Their likes and dislikes. Their political views, their family history . . . what they believe in.

What they don't.

Some of those things are life choices, and some are very much beyond their control. But then when you take all of those things . . . what's a choice, and what just is . . . and you roll them together, you have a person.

You have a life.

And after so many hard years together I was convinced that I knew everything that there was to know about my team. Of course not every little thing . . . we all have our secrets, and we all keep them well . . . but every important thing.

Everything that mattered.

But today I learned something new. Something that in this . . . my eyes begin to burn . . . horrible moment, seems profoundly important to me.

Garcia has a dragon tattoo.

It's small and discreet and tucked down beneath the ball of her ankle. I'm looking at it right now. And as I stare at it, in my horrific fascination, I wonder why it was that I never knew about it before. Because you see, Penelope likes to talk about her tattoos. I know that she has a yellow rose on her left shoulder, a little keyboard on her right thigh and a giving tree covering the middle of her back. They all have special significance to her, and they're all little patches of art that she displays with pride. So I have to wonder . . . why didn't I know about the dragon? When did she get it?

What did it mean to her?

And why had she hidden it away?

These are questions that in this moment, I so badly want to ask her. But as the emergency room team races around me, I wonder if I'll ever have the chance.

The tears start to pool as I squeeze the small hand that I'm holding . . . it's limp and cold. Not from death . . . not yet . . . it's shock. Trauma. Her mind is gone.

As is her left foot.

That would be the one that I'm staring at . . . the one with the dragon tattoo. It's a few feet away, sitting on a gurney floating in a bag that's been placed in a bucket of ice. The axe severed it clean off just above the ankle. When I asked the doctor if it could be reattached he hesitated for a moment, and then said maybe. That the cut was good, but that she'd lost a lot of blood. Then he said something else. Something that had royally pissed me off. He said that the one good thing was that she'd been found so quickly.

That she was lucky.

Yeah . . . I'd thought bitterly . . . her terrified, agony induced shrieks had fortunately alerted the neighbors that a serial killer was hacking her into pieces.

Lucky girl.

Trying to push down the wave of fury and bitterness about to wash over me again, I take a breath as I watch a new doctor . . . a surgeon I deduce from the information being shouted at him . . . race in to the E.R. to evaluate her condition. I wince as I again hear them run down her injuries.

In addition to the severed foot, she has a six inch gash on the back of her head, she lost the tips of two fingers . . . also clean slices . . . and broke her right arm and left femur when she had . . . by all accounts . . . fallen, into the bathtub.

That's what had saved her.

Falling into the tub.

I was there. I went to her apartment first and I saw the scene. The tub is a huge, old claw monstrosity, and knowing the clown's tendency to swing first and ask questions later, it was clear in my reconstruction that she'd lost her fingertips when she'd put up her hand to defend herself.

Of course it was no defense at all.

But . . . feeling a wave of tenderness, I lean over to press a kiss to her cheek . . . she still tried. "Good girl," I whisper in her ear. And then I blink away the tears before they start trickling over.

Too much has happened . . . I wipe the moisture from the corner of my eye . . . I'm losing too many of them.

My heart has cracks.

But I know that I can't focus on that grief right now. If I do I'll lose it completely. So instead I step back into what calms me . . . what I know.

How to read a crime scene.

And I know without a doubt that those fingertips were lost with the first swing of the axe . . . and that would have been when she fell. That's also when she took the gash on the back of her head. But that fall overall is what saved her life. She was found sprawled on her back on the cold porcelain. Unfortunately though, she fell with her left leg hanging out of the bathtub.

That's how her foot had ended up on the floor.

But all the screaming had at least alerted the neighbors that something terrible was happening. And it appeared . . . based on the timeline from the first scream to the first call to the last sighting of The Clown running away . . . that as the lights had come on, It had decided there was no time to finish off Garcia as planned. My stomach turns as my thought stutter.

He didn't have time to turn her into a Haley.

And for that . . . a sob starts to rise up as I look over her small . . . yet still mostly whole, body . . . for that I couldn't be more grateful.

Small mercies today.

Feeling my tears again about to spill over, I blink furiously and turn my head away from the broken woman in front of me, the bucket of ice and that mocking tattoo. Now I have another question for the doctors . . . but it's one for which I'm afraid of the answer.

I want to ask if they think her mind will come back.

But . . . I pinch the bridge of my nose to cover the tears pooling . . . I know that's a question beyond their expertise. It's a question beyond mine.

It's a question beyond us all.

Even with what we saw in those hellish tunnels last year . . . human beings reduced to small chunks of still living flesh . . . there really didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to who among them went blessedly mad . . . and who was cursed to remain sane. Poor Haley suffered as much as any of them . . . probably more given her connection to Hotch . . . and she still could speak right up to the bitter end when she begged her ex-husband to help her die.

Sanity was one big crapshoot.

Nobody ever knows how they'll react in a situation like this . . . because there are no situations like this.

There's nothing to prepare you for them.

And though I hate to leave Penelope here at this hospital without anyone from the team, I know that as soon as they whisk her up to the operating room I have to leave. The Clown is out there . . . a swirl of terror and fury rises up . . . and I know that he's not done with us yet. JJ and Spencer have so far been safe. Untouched.

But for how long?

A wave of grief washes over me as I sneak another glance at Garcia's blood splattered body . . . how long can I protect them from this hell? Spencer's the only son I'll ever have. And JJ, from the short distance my life exists from hers . . . she's perhaps my one true love.

The cracks in my heart spread, forming deep fissures as I consider what's already been done to Derek and Penelope . . . and then the horrors that The Clown has in store for the others.

I nearly throw up.

Of course I know that he'll be coming for me too. But concerns for my own safety are secondary. My team . . . I wipe away the lone tear that's finally spilled over . . . my family, keeping them safe is all that matters. And I know that means I'll have to tell Hotch and Emily what's happened. They're still as much my blood as any of the rest of them. And I know that this has all been done in their name.

To lure them back out in the open.

After the year they've had, telling them what's happened is going to cause them more grief than they can probably bear, but it has to be done. They need to know now so they don't try to come home for Morgan's funeral.

Really they might not ever be able to come home again.

Hearing the yell of new orders, I lean over to place one last kiss on Penelope's pale cheek . . . but that's a bridge we'll cross another day. For now, for today . . . I step back as the trauma team swoops in to move the gurney to the elevators . . . I need to focus on keeping my people alive. And that means moving them all out of state.

Everybody's going into Witness Protection.

That was what I decided when I ran into Garcia's gore streaked apartment . . . I was sending them all away. No arguments, no discussions. It was the only way that I'd be able to focus on catching this monster.

If I knew that he couldn't get to the others.

And as I see the gurney holding Garcia start to move into one of the elevators, I watch as the ice buckets follow after in the arms of the nurses. As I say a little prayer in my head for Garcia's recovery, I motion for two of my shadows to follow after them. Their heads jerk down in quick nods of assent as they hurry into the doors before they close.

Now I'm left with just Agent Lucas.

He transferred into the BAU fresh out of the Academy. A genius . . . but not one quite so smart as Reid. He's more socially adjusted. For a moment I stare across the room at this kid, barely twenty-six . . . and in that moment there's just one word that I want to scream at him.

RUN!

Run far, far away before you end up being carried around in ice buckets too! But it's too late for that . . . he drew the short straw. He's here with us. He's been seen.

And now he's already been sucked into our terrible world.

So instead of screaming the warning I wish I could give him, I just scrub my hand across my mouth. And as he walks up to me and asks what's next, I have to break this news to him.

"You're not safe Lucas. You just got put on his list."

As his eyes slowly widen in shock and horror, all semblance of the cool, confident agent is gone. Now he's just a twenty-six year old kid again. Frightened at the reality of his own mortality. In the knowledge that the Boogeyman will be looking up his address.

He might turn up in his closet tonight.

And for somebody who woke up this morning with his whole life spread out in front of him, he's doing pretty well considering he just now found out that life might numbered in days.

In an effort to comfort . . . though there's little comfort to be had . . . I pat his arm and I tell him that we just need to stay out in the open. That we always have to be where there's lots of light, and other people.

That if can stay out in the open then we'll be all right for now.

And then my gaze drops down to the shiny gold band on his finger . . . he got married last fall. And my voice starts to get husky as I tell him to call his wife, that he needs to send his family away until this over. That they can't tell anyone here where they're going, but it would be best if they went out of state.

Watching him fumble for his cell phone, I know that I've just put this poor kid in a state of previously unknown panic and terror.

Good.

That's the state of being he needs to be in to stay alert.

To stay alive.

That and the fact that he's moving into the Academy will hopefully get him through this . . . literally . . . in one piece.

As Lucas turns slightly away and begins his furtive whispers to his wife, I pull out my own cell. First I send JJ a text. I tell her that Garcia's alive and in surgery and that I'll be back on base soon. Then I tell her to call and find us a half dozen bunks in the Academy rooming. As I hit send I know I'm being a coward. I should have called her. I should have told her what's happening.

She deserves to know.

But truly, the news I have to tell her is not something that I can share with her on the phone. She's all alone there . . . it would be cruel. So for now the text will have to do. She's safe where she is and she's not going anywhere. But Reid . . . my jaw twitches as I pull up his number . . . he's the next kid I need to scare the shit out of this morning. Because he's out in the world. And being out in the world is not a safe place to be.

I want him back with me now.

So I press my finger down on his name and then I listen as the phone rings . . . and rings . . . and rings . . .

And rings.

And though I try to remind myself how spotty the cell coverage is down there, still my tension rises with every unanswered note. Because they should be done by now.

They should be back on the road by now.

His phone should be working.

And the fact that I've now gotten his voicemail seven times in a row is scaring the ever living shit out of me. My blood is cold as my stomach twists and turns. Finally my wild eyes seek out Lucas standing a few feet away. He's finished his phone call with his wife, and he's obviously trying to get his own terror under control again. It's also obvious that my current level of agitation is doing nothing to help him with that endeavor.

"Sir," his voice stutters slightly, "what's wrong? Did something else happen?"

My eyes drop down to the phone clenched in my shaking hand.

"Yes," my voice is barely a whisper as I frantically scroll down to the number for the FBI switchboard.

"I think so."

_

* * *

A/N 2: I know! I know! Garcia's missing a foot and a couple fingers. I understand, that's very not cool. But remember, we left her in a little room with no weapons and an ax wielding psychopath. And yet she's still alive! And the doctors said they can probably stitch her all up again. So you know, this was the best case scenario outcome for the axe wielding psychopath in her bathroom. Really, it was the only way to write her out of there in (relatively) decent shape. There was no version where he didn't at least take a swipe at her before he left, and the room was too small for her to avoid any injury at all. And there are no "minor" axe injuries. But she's not a Haley._

_And hopefully you'll be pleased to see that we'll be pulling in some new little side characters, the other agents assigned to stay with them, to help provide some more bodies to distract the Clown with. If you'll recall from Snake Pit, anybody can be made an example of, so now it won't just be coming down to the primary team members having bulls' eyes on them._

_This prompt, loved this prompt. I needed a focus for Dave finding Garcia in the hospital and as soon as I saw it, it started coming to me. Him discovering this secret about her and wondering if he'd ever get a chance to ask her what it meant._

_I promise that we will shortly be checking in with Hotch and Emily. I know it might not seem like it to you, but I can actually almost see the finish line from here. So slow and steady will eventually win the race._

_Thanks again, small group of continuing readers here :) The dark, twisty part of my brain is insisting on telling this story so it's nice to know there are a couple of you out there still reading it. _


	8. Small Sacrifices

**Author's Note**: And I hit the trifecta! Three postings in one weekend. Wa Hooh!

Though it does feel wrong to be 'wa hooing' in this story, but let's all remember . . . these people don't really exist :)

This chapter is not explicit in descriptions, but again, fair warning, it is upsetting. Take heed from the chapter title, this was a warning initially from the very beginning of the story . . .

This is all JJ, we're opening with her in an SUV.

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**TV Bonus Challenge # 5**

Show: Studio 60

Title Challenge: The Friday Night Slaughter

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**Story Title Prompt Set #1**

Author: Stephen King

Title Challenge: The Regulators

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_JJ's POV – Late Morning_

**Small Sacrifices**

Spencer's missing.

We found out a few hours ago and I still haven't quite processed it yet. Initially the feelings conjured up were horror and pain, but now the knowledge is just sitting there like a lead ball in my gut. It's not grief . . . not like it was when I first found out . . . now it's just, well, nothing. Too much concrete horror has occurred today for me to fully process an unknown. And that's what this is right now.

An unknown.

Maybe if I knew exactly what had happened to him, I'd know exactly how to feel. If I should grieve for him like I am for Derek. Or if it's like with Penelope. For her I can feel sad and horrified . . . but still hopeful. Hopeful that maybe she'll recover from her injuries and come back to us one day. It's a nice dream.

I don't know if I can have a nice dream about Spencer.

No . . . my teeth sink into my lower lip as I shake my head slightly . . . no, I don't think that I can. Not now.

Not with what little we know.

And what little we know is that his group was ambushed down at the second crime scene. Ambushed by somebody who initially tried to pass himself off as an FBI Agent.

It was the clown of course.

And the only reason that we know the little bit that we do about what happened to our friend, is because one of the wounded deputies managed to make it to a patrol car and radio for help. He was screaming. The words barely comprehensible. But you could make out that he was severely injured, that his partner had been decapitated by a man with an axe, and then he was mid-sentence . . . trying to describe the scene around him . . . when suddenly there was a gurgle . . . and then the line went to static.

He was dead.

And I heard the tape . . . I heard him die. It was horrible. The backup arrived twenty minutes later. But as is always par for the course with the clown . . . it came much too late.

So that's what I know regarding the whereabouts of my poor Spencer.

Nothing.

So for him, I can't grieve or hope . . . my eyes start to sting . . . all I can do is pray. But for what . . . I just don't know. Do I pray that he's alive and being hunted by that monster? Or do I pray that he died quickly and painlessly and that there will be no terror or suffering in his future?

This is not a prayer choice that I can make.

The bottom line is . . . for the foreseeable future . . . Dave and I are now alone in our little crime fighting world. We used to be so strong . . . our strength partly in our numbers, in our devotion to one another . . . but now we're just two.

What can we do?

And as badly as I know Dave wants to go down there and search for Spencer . . . and as badly as I want him to go . . . I know that he won't leave me. When we found out what happened to the group . . . when we listened to the tape . . . we were in his office. Just a few minutes earlier he'd told me all the gory details about Penelope, and then this second . . . third . . . wave of horror washed over us. I was sobbing as Dave held me to his chest. And that's when I first freaked out, begging him to go find Spencer and bring him back home.

Dave refused.

His voice had caught as his eyes filled with tears, and then he told me that he couldn't think that way. He couldn't believe that Reid was alive and waiting for him to find him. Because if he did that . . . then he'd go insane. He had to assume . . . based on history and averages . . . that Spencer had been taken. And if that was the case, then we both knew . . . there was nothing to be done.

And that's when I lost it completely. I began to pound on his chest while screaming at him for putting such a horrible image in my head.

For letting me picture my poor Spencer as a mutilation like Haley.

But Dave . . . my fingers curl into a fist as our SUV swerves by a semi-truck . . . God do I love that man, he just let me yell and scream and blame him for things that weren't his fault. And when I was done . . . when that initial wave of rage and grief had passed to be replaced by the lead ball of Nothingness . . . I threw my arms around his neck and sobbed that I was sorry. And would he please forgive me the terrible things that I had said.

He told me that there was nothing to forgive.

Then he rubbed my back and whispered that I was the last one that he could save and that he wasn't leaving me again for any reason. And as I look over at him next to me in the backseat of our transport, I see the deep lines on his face, the little patches of silver in his hair. Everything looks more pronounced today than yesterday.

He seems older.

I know then that it's not just my perception . . . from the tension in his body I can see . . . he really does think that he's failed us. That somehow he was supposed to anticipate this horror show that has begun to play again.

But there was no way that he could have known. No way that he could have prevented this. This isn't his fault that it's happening. No more than it was Hotch's fault before him. It's just the price we've paid for choosing the lives that we did. It was hubris.

That's what it was.

Hubris.

We spent years thinking of ourselves as untouchable. As though Hell was a place that we could go to on our own time, on our own terms . . . and then leave whenever we wanted. As though eventually something wasn't going to follow us home. What fools we were. All these years . . . we've just been damn lucky.

Our luck ran out sixteen months ago.

So in an effort to offer Dave a small bit of comfort for chances of fate far beyond his control, I reach over and pick up his hand. Then I hold it between both of mine, feeling the heat of his body warm my cold fingers.

A second later I look up at him and a second after that his eyes shift down to me.

We stare at each other for a moment. And though he says nothing, I can see his expression soften ever so slightly in gratitude for my action. Over the last year Dave and I have become close . . . very close . . . next to my husband and child, David Rossi is probably the person I could least live without.

That bond was what got us through the dark days after Emily and Hotch left. That bond was also strengthened by their departure. And ordinarily he confides in me. Shares not only his thoughts about our cases, but also his worries and fears as well.

But not today.

Today he is most definitely keeping his own counsel. And my heart aches as I see his gaze shift away from mine, the wall going back up again as he stares at the world passing by outside our window. His jaw is granite. And though I know that his grief and sorrow is as soul numbing as my own . . . I see no sign of it on his face. And I realize then that more than likely, at this point expressing any outward emotions at all would cause him actual physical pain. So he's keeping it all hidden away.

He's never reminded me more of Hotch.

At that realization . . . of how this world destroys these fine men . . . my grief spills over yet again. The tears begin to trickle down my face as I slowly rub Dave's fingers between mine, reminding him that I'm still here with him.

That even if he blames himself . . . I don't.

So as our caravan of black of black SUVs races with lights and sirens up I-95 North, I lean over and put my head on Dave's shoulder. Then I slip my arm through his and tuck his hand over and against my stomach.

Again I feel his warmth.

And though he tries to pretend like he's not affected by what I've done . . . I can see his eyes glistening. That's enough for me. I know that I've at least made a little dent in that wall. So as we travel up in our journey from the Academy to the safe house where they've moved my husband and children . . . Dave is sending us all out of state . . . I allow my mind to drift back again to what happened at that crime scene and then to wonder where Spencer is now.

I'm still trying to decide what to pray for.

Literally the only good news to come out of that situation came later . . . from the backup . . . they said not one of the bodies on the ground was wearing an FBI windbreaker. Nor were any of them carrying Bureau identification. And for a minute I was completely convinced . . . though Rossi wouldn't listen to me . . . that somehow there was a miracle.

That Reid saved them all.

That his ridiculously beautiful brain put two and two together before it was too late. Dave believes that's wishful thinking . . . but so what if it is? What's wrong with putting a wish like that out into the world?

Well . . . fresh tears pool . . . I guess a few things actually. What if they did get away at first but the clown caught up later? How long could they last? How much would they suffer? He punishes more severely those who run away.

And the worst punishment of all has clearly been saved for those in our Unit . . . I flash on Haley . . . and for those that we hold dear.

So again . . . I wipe my hand across my face . . . what's the prayer?

Alive or dead.

With a wince and a stab in my heart, I push these thoughts away. Maybe it's best if I pray for nothing.

If I just let God sort it out.

The problem is as I try to let my worries about Spencer fade to the shadows, my brain automatically shifts to my other friend.

Pen.

She's been lost to me right now in a different way. The doctors told Dave that they're unsure if her mind will come back from wherever it's gone to hide. Well that's okay . . . I choke down a sob that unexpectedly comes bubbling up . . . as long as she's happy in her little world that she's run to. Maybe Derek's spirit is there with her.

That would be nice.

At the thought of my dear friends, of their final moments of pain and suffering, another sob escapes. And then I can see that the other agents in the Suburban . . . the driver included . . . are shifting in their seats, trying to put a distance between them and my naked grief.

It frightens them.

It frightens me too. I didn't used to be a person that would cry in front of others. Certainly not in front of my colleagues.

Things change.

Quickly though, I do try to pull myself back together . . . to save a little dignity . . . but then I feel Dave pull his arm away from where I've tangled myself around him. Before I can protest . . . I need him . . . his arm is up then and around my shoulders.

He's pulling me against his side and murmuring in my ear.

"We'll get through this Jennifer. We'll get through it together."

With these words of hope . . . the little hope we have . . . swirling in my brain, I close my eyes and turn to bury my face into Dave's tweed jacket. I'm breathing in his essence.

His strength.

But then I realize that as he props me up . . . I'm tearing him down. My tears are doing nothing but causing him additional pain. And as I feel them begin to soak into his jacket, I pull one of my hands from his to wipe it across my face. Then I take a deep breath. And another.

And another.

Finally, there's one last shudder and I nod against his chest.

"I'm okay now."

The words are barely a whisper, but I know from the kiss he presses to my temple . . . he heard me.

A second later I sit up, pulling away completely for a moment to dig out a tissue from the box under the seat. I blow my nose and wipe my face. My makeup . . . the little I'd put on by rote before I left the house . . . has long since melted away. I know I look like hell and I just don't care.

So once I've pulled myself back together the best I can, I reach over and tuck my arm through Dave's again.

This time it's as much for him as me.

And for a little while . . . as the world speeds by our bulletproof windows . . . I find a level of calm. Not peace . . . not by any means . . . but I find a level of existence beyond tears. It helps me until we move on to the next thing coming.

Relocating my family.

Though I agree with Dave, we're all safer if we go away . . . it worked for Hotch and Emily . . . still, the thought frightens me. I don't know how long we'll be away. When we can come back.

And if the clown will make an attempt on us while we're in flight.

These are concrete fears . . . considerations separate from the pain and misery surrounding thoughts of my friends . . . so I focus on these worries for awhile. They're something new.

A distraction.

It works for awhile, but then I see that we're turning off the Interstate . . . our lead car has already disappeared around the curve for the exit ramp . . . and a new set of fears and worries wash over me.

Getting out of the SUV.

That alone . . . such a simple act . . . it's terrifying. Inside the walls of Quantico we were safe. Moving down the highway at eighty miles an hour, we were safe. Simply stepping out onto the sidewalk of lazy suburban neighborhood.

Not safe at all.

If the clown's going to strike again today, this would be the time. And as we drive through the side roads of Fairfax County, my anxiety grows. Before I know it we've moved completely into that lazy suburban neighborhood that's scaring the ever living shit out of me.

I know the address is just yards ahead.

Then suddenly the agent driving the SUV in front of us . . . Schumacher . . . he hits his blinker, and our driver . . . Chandler . . . she does the same. They both drift over and stop on the side of the road.

My hearts skips a beat . . . we shouldn't be stopping. Not yet. Though I know that our protective detail needs to confer with the team watching the safe house, they can do that by radio. They should have already _done_ that, by radio.

And that seems to be the problem.

Dave and I aren't wired, but the agent riding shotgun is, and I can see from the tension in his shoulders as he murmurs to the agent in the other SUV . . . something's wrong. And even as he's barking out orders, demanding an update on what's happening, Dave's reaching for our headsets.

Tossing one to me as he yanks on his own.

My heart's now pounding, and for a second as I adjust the little wire around my ear I hear nothing but static. And I'm about to ask what channel they're on, but then I see the same look of confusion on Dave's face as he confirms the question I was about to ask.

Are they on six?

At the tense nods from the front seat I realize . . . they all have static too.

OH JESUS!

True terror begins to wash over me as I the tension begins to pour off the other agents around me. Dave's voice is slightly ragged as he says we're going in weapons hot. As one our training kicks in and we reach for our weapons . . . but Dave's free hand also reaches for mine.

"Dave . . .?"

My eyes are focus on my Sig, and the question comes out tentative and incomplete . . . but still he knows what I'm asking. And he's slipping his pistol up and to his lap as he's leaning down to whisper in my ear that he put the detail on my family before he even put a detail on me. And that means that they should have been fine.

They absolutely SHOULD have been fine!

He says it twice, and that's the thought racing through my panicked mind as my eyes burn and we ready to leave the relative safety of our little rolling fortress. Then Dave gives the order. The doors fly open.

We're moving.

With our guns out and safeties off, we're running flat out towards the little green two story I can see just a few houses away.

It's mocking me in its normality.

The agents in our lead car and our follow have of course joined us on this mad dash we're taking. And I can see the neighbors looking at us in horror.

What the hell is going on here?

It's the question on their minds. It's the question on mine as well. And then I can hear Dave screaming at them to get inside and to lock their doors . . . and they do. The street is instantly cleared of mothers and children, of retirees out tending to their gardens. It's just us now. Suits and guns.

The regulators.

But today . . . we reach the front walk of the house that I'm told my husband and child will be found . . . we can't seem to regulate shit. And as our forward momentum slows for the group to take entry positions, my wild eyes make contact with Dave's. I know from the look on his face that he wants to tell me that everything's okay . . . that it's just a technical glitch . . . that everything's just fine. But he doesn't say these things. Because when it comes to the clown, worst case scenario is all you can operate under.

To assume any less would be suicide.

My mind won't allow me to think the absolute worst though. To contemplate the deaths of my . . . my . . . the images start to appear and my brain locks them down.

Locks them out.

That's the road to madness. That was Penelope's out. And though that might be a path that I'll be taking shortly . . . I'm not ready to go there just yet.

Not until I know for sure.

The two lead agents move in front of us, trying to do as they'd been instructed . . . protect us from the ghoul. But I know that they're terrified. Everyone in the Bureau knows who we are and what happened with the clown a year ago.

And now what's happened again this morning.

It was the talk on everyone's lips as we rushed out of the building. And they all know that this killer is considered nearly unstoppable . . . almost supernatural.

Like Michael Myers or Jason.

But this isn't a movie.

And this man and woman in front of me probably kissed their families goodbye this morning having no idea the horrors that they'd be experiencing today. I just hope that they told their spouses that they loved them.

I hope they all did.

For a moment I've been able to distract myself by worrying about the others around me, but then something catches my eye and my coping mechanism is shattered.

There's blood on the door.

I can see it from our spot moving slowly up the front walk. The splintering begins. My mind is separating, and though I try to stop it, to hold it off . . . that blackness that took Penelope is coming for me. There's my life before this moment . . . and there's my life after this moment.

Nothing will ever be the same.

Dave must have just seen what I saw because he yanks me back and against his side, holding me there as he motions for everyone else to freeze. My brain is like molasses, I can't react, I can't think quickly. And he's taking advantage of that while it lasts.

Because we both know that it won't.

So as we stand on that cold grey slate and I stare in wide eyed horror at the smear of blood on the door, Dave does something that we haven't done since those days when we were searching the hospital up in New Jersey.

He loops his belt around my arm . . . then he takes my weapon from me.

My brain understands enough about what's happening to know that I'm in no position to be holding a firearm. And I also know that the belt is as much to prevent me from being taken as it is to prevent me from running into rooms before the others have cleared them.

And when that last thought comes to me . . . when those horrific images begin to take over my brain . . . that's when the molasses clears.

I turn and begin screaming at him.

"WE HAVE TO GO IN NOW! WE HAVE TO GET **INSIDE**!"

But Dave doesn't acknowledge my mounting hysteria . . . or the tears now streaming down my face . . . he won't make eye contact with me. He just tucks my gun into his pocket. He already knows what we're going to find.

The blood on that door is brown.

The blood on that door is dry.

There is no need to rush.

And that's why my brain is shutting down. My husband and my child were brought to this house earlier today because it was safe . . . but there are bodies behind that door.

There was no safety to be found here.

The belt Dave latched to me is too tight. It's cutting into my wrist as he motions for us to begin moving again. But I welcome the pain. I relish it . . . it's another momentary distraction.

I'd happily gouge out my own eyes if I thought that pain would be sufficient to keep me from what's coming.

But then I see the rapid hand signals . . . everyone's in position. All ten of us . . . it's not enough. It's never enough. Because now we've come to the moment. The moment where my life now will end and a new one will begin.

Just before that happens, Dave turns back to look at me . . . I see that his mask has slipped. The anguish on his face nearly matches that found in my soul. But he says nothing. There's nothing to say. He just kisses my cheek, and then he turns.

And he kicks in the door.

He doesn't go in though. Nobody does. They're all frozen in a tableau of horror . . . myself included. Then one of the younger agents turns and throws up in a shrub. It's an action I'm only peripherally aware of, because for that moment my brain stutters . . . and then it stops, unable to process the scene in front of me. But then slowly the shapes and the colors start to form patterns . . . and faces.

Faces I know.

That's all it takes. The screaming begins, and then Dave's grabbing me and yelling my name.

The world goes black.

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_A/N 2: I think you can all imagine what it was they found inside the door. I actually have a very clear image in my mind, but I just have no desire or stomach to actually describe the death of children in Technicolor. Especially ones killed by The Clown. Clearly that's not "fun" so we'll just cut that ugly scene as one you can fill in your own blanks. _

_By chapter title, if you're familiar with the movie of the same name (with Farrah) then you probably saw the ending coming here. Again, it's not explicit by description, but clearly it would go under the category of "rated for adult content." _

_You can hate this twist but please don't yell at me :) because I did alluded to this outcome in the opening warning on chapter 1. And this is a horror story in the truest sense, so I didn't really see simply knocking off the team members one by one as an effective (or frightening) approach here. Oh, killed Derek, oh killed JJ, oh . . . where's the challenge in the that? But the idea that their families could fall prey to the Clown, that Henry could die that way, that was truly horrific. And it was a way to take a team member out without actually laying a hand on her. Thank God really that I had two the endings for Snake Pit! Because honestly, even though I'm writing this, it's still rather disturbing to picture an entire universe I created ending in such carnage. At least right now there's still the other option you can choose as your ending. The one where everybody lives and the clown moves on to a new hunting ground._

_And as to him getting their before they did, again, he's had a year to plan this. To figure out what moves they'd make before they made them. This move was to be expected, as was his countermove._

_Funny, writing this bit about the hubris, and thinking about Haley being dead here . . . and dead in canon . . . I think that section really worked there for both. It's true though. Just the insanity of that idea, that you can come and go from a world like that on your own terms. Eventually (as happened with Foyet, and here with the clown) something follows you home._

_Reid's status is still unknown from when we left them in the forest. We'll find out in a few chapters what happened there._

_Ending on a good news note, next up, Hotch and Emily! Yes, finally. It's funny I realized we're on chapter eight and we've barely heard a peep from them, yet the story is listed as an H/P. But really the whole vendetta is about them, and once they come back then their viewpoints will start taking prominence. The end is in sight people!_


	9. News From Back Home

**Author's Note:** Finally moving overseas to catch up with Hotch and Emily. This is all Emily.

**Other Accounts:**

_**Twitter: ffsienna27 **__– For story announcements, etc. If the alerts, (or the site), are down, this is a backup to find out what's going on for postings. There's also some random randomness that is my brain._

_**Tumblr: sienna27 **__– More randomness._

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**TV Prompt Set Challenge #22**

Show: ER

Challenge: Of Past Regret & Future Fear

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_Emily's POV_

**News From Back Home**

As I enter the bedroom that my husband and I have shared for the last ten months, our sleeping daughter sighs heavily against my shoulder. It's late and she's exhausted . . . we both are . . . but her soft crying and my aching breasts got both of us up an hour ago.

At her age . . . thirteen weeks . . . this is a regular occurrence for us both.

But now she's fed and changed and once again fast asleep in my arms. The faint tickle of her tiny breath warms my heart.

But then I look up.

Across the room I can see Aaron in the soft light from the lamp on the desk. Though it's almost three am local time, I can see him placing the embassy phone back into its cradle.

The tension in his body stops me cold.

"Who was that?"

My voice is soft so as not to wake the baby, but I'm also hoping that it's covering my level of concern at that moment. Though I know that there are many reasons for our phone to ring at this hour . . . none of them are good ones. And though I'm praying that it's just something to do with our work here . . . we now profile terrorist cells from the safety of our bulletproof offices . . . when Aaron turns his head, my heart skips a beat. It's the look on his face.

Fear.

Aaron's afraid.

And suddenly all of those myriad reasons are boiled down to just one terrible truth. Because you see, my husband is the toughest man I've ever met, and given the company that I've kept since childhood . . . that's saying something extraordinary. And even with all of the monsters that we've hunted together . . . and all of the evil that exists in the world . . . I know that Aaron only truly fears one thing.

The Clown.

"What did It do?"

I refuse to refer to it as a man . . . it's not.

A moment passes, but Aaron doesn't answer my question. Instead . . . to my utter astonishment . . . his eyes begin to water. And then my terror jumps up another notch. My husband doesn't cry.

Not ever.

Not even when we took Haley off of life support.

He said he had to be strong. Strong for Jack. And when Aaron sets his mind to something, his will is unbendable.

He doesn't cry because he chooses not to.

And apparently he has just remembered this fact as well, because he quickly blinks away the moisture pooling as he stands up and pushes in the chair.

"Sweetheart," he whispers, his voice hoarse and strained with grief, "you need to give me the baby."

And now I'm absolutely terrified. If he won't answer my question until I put down the baby, that means that the clown isn't just back . . . it's already taken somebody that we love.

Oh Jesus . . . my own eyes begin to burn with unshed tears . . . it's all happening AGAIN!

As my body starts to tremble, Aaron quickly hurries across the room. After he brushes his lips against mine . . . the kiss is a comfort . . . he gently eases our child from my arms to his. And as he cradles her to his chest, I can hear his breath coming in short little puffs.

Almost like its hurting him to breathe.

My nails dig into my palms as he presses his lips to our daughter's downy cheek. Then he closes his eyes for a moment before his gaze lifts slowly back up to mine.

He looks so broken.

So lost.

And though my fear has now become an albatross . . . I can feel it pressing against my chest, suffocating me . . . I don't push him again to speak. Because I know that once he has the words to say . . . that he'll say them.

But then he won't be able to take them back.

I decide to give us both a moment.

But the tension begins to mount as the seconds continue to tick by. It's been nearly a minute now since he took Lucy from me, and my imagination is starting to take over what's left of my rational thought. Still, Aaron's just staring at me.

And still, he has that horrible look in his eyes.

His only movement is that of his free hand . . . it's rubbing little circles on Lucy's back. And I want to reach out and touch him . . . but I don't know if I should. I honest to God don't know what to do. Until I know what's happened, I don't know how to make this moment better for him.

For us.

Just as I start to raise my arm . . . I'm going to touch his cheek . . . he shifts our daughter to his shoulder. Though I don't know for sure that his movement was intended to counter mine, for some reason I feel a small . . . petty . . . sting of rejection.

As though he doesn't want my comfort.

The thought is foolish . . . my husband loves me, he loves me more than I'd thought were possible . . . but still the thought is there.

And it hurts.

So I watch silently as he goes over and shuts our bedroom door, and then he turns the deadbolt that he installed the day we arrived. Though the entire embassy is already secure . . . the private residence doubly so . . . now we're in a personal little cage of reinforced titanium and steel.

It's now just us and our children alone in the world.

And I watch with clenched fists as my husband goes over to slip through the partially open side door that leads off of our room.

Jack's room of course.

Aaron disappears for a moment, but I know what he's doing . . . checking the other deadbolt to the corridor.

It's a ritual that we do every night. But of course the ritual is unnecessary. Not only do I know that the door is locked now . . . Aaron checked it when we went to bed at eleven . . . but more to the point, the door is locked always.

It's one of our rules.

Now checking that door has simply become a habit that we cannot break. And we cannot break it because our rituals keep us alive.

They're what we have instead of faith.

So I wait for him to return from checking a lock that is never turned. And a moment later he once again appears in the doorway. This time when our eyes lock, I can see that the moisture has returned.

But again he blinks it away.

Then he turns and slowly pushes the door shut . . . he leaves just an inch of open space into the darkness beyond. It's another one of our rituals. The door stays open just enough for us to hear anything that might go bump in the night. For some young parents that would be overprotective, but for us there's no such thing. And in fact simply allowing Jack to sleep in his own bed is progress in our family. Because for the first three months at the embassy, Jack slept with us.

Newlyweds with a four year old in their bed.

But it was the only way that any of us could sleep.

And thinking back on those terrible weeks right after Haley's death, I can hold my tongue no longer.

"Honey please," I whisper hoarsely, "who did It take this time?"

The question that I hoped never to ask, causes my voice to crack.

But still Aaron says nothing but, "not yet sweetheart," as he comes over and takes my hand.

He walks me the few feet over to our bed.

The grip on my fingers is loose as he sits me down . . . but then suddenly I feel the pressure increase. And I wince as my eyes snap down . . . Aaron's knuckles are turning white.

He's hurting me.

But I hide my pain from him because it's not just my flesh that hurts, but also my heart. I know that this is a moment of weakness for my husband. His fear . . . and his panic . . . they're leaching through his control. And it would embarrass him to draw attention to it.

So though my fingers are starting to go numb, still I say nothing. Instead I just hold onto him, as tightly as he's holding onto me. But of course that's my default position in all aspects of our life.

To keep my little family always within my grasp.

But then Aaron suddenly lets go.

His hand . . . and the strength it gives me . . . is taken away. And with it, that little unwelcome . . . unkind . . . sting of rejection returns.

As much as I adore my husband, and as much as I know that that emotion is returned tenfold, I fear that he'll never need me as much as I need him. It's that shell of his. Those layers that he's built up over the years. It's what's allowed him to keep his rigid control under the most hellish of situations. I think . . . if the worst came to be . . . that he could go on without me.

I can't say the same.

And my heart twists as he stands, and then I watch as he walks over to place our baby in her bassinet. My fingers come together. They knot into a tight little ball in my lap as Aaron tugs Lucy's pink blanket up her tiny chest.

He stops just shy of her little shoulders.

Then he pauses for a moment, his palm resting lightly over our child's belly. And seeing him standing there . . . standing guard . . . with his strong hand covering her fragile body, it all becomes too much. I'm not as disciplined with my emotions as he is.

I never will be.

"Aaron," I whisper hoarsely as my left hand rises up, reaching out for him, "please come back. Please tell me what happened before I go mad."

At that he finally turns, his watery gaze catching my terrified one.

"I'm sorry sweetheart," he whispers as he pulls his hand away from the baby and starts walking back to me, "I was just collecting my thoughts."

When he sits down again, he once more takes my hand. But I know that this time he's doing it for my comfort . . . not for his.

And that means that this time he won't let go.

He starts slowly.

"That was Rossi on the phone," his fingers tighten around mine as he clears his throat, "some things have happened back home . . . some terrible things."

His eyes shift to lock onto mine.

"You need to prepare yourself Emily."

Though I know that Aaron's doing what he can to soften the blows that are coming . . . and I love him for that . . . I also know that there is no preparation for what he's going to say.

That's why he hasn't said it yet.

So I cut to the chase.

"Aaron, _please_," I whisper, "please just tell me what happened."

Aaron's gaze is steady and his eyes are wet as his fingers tighten around mine. Then he slowly exhales.

"It killed Morgan. He sabotaged his car, and then ran him down on the side of the road."

My jaw drops. Again . . . there is no preparation. The Clown is a level of hell unlike anything else.

My immediate inclination . . . beyond the wave of grief and loss . . . is to scream at the universe to take it back. To make Morgan live again. It's a pathetically foolish thought for a woman leading a different life. As though the universe would ever care what I want. It never has before.

Haley's proof of that.

My nails dig into Aaron's palm as I double over gasping. And as his free hand starts rubbing circles on my back . . . I notice absentmindedly that it's the same thing that he did to Lucy not minutes ago . . . I'm trying desperately to get a full breath of air into my lungs.

But it won't come.

The hot tears are running down my cheeks, the salty taste fills my mouth. My last memories of Derek are racing through my mind. The hug he gave me . . . the kiss.

The gun.

It was a new Glock. He gave it to me because he said you can never have too many weapons. I wear it every day to work. It's my backup piece.

My reminder of him.

It's been a comfort on my bad days, and there have been so many of them. But when I wore it I knew that even if we were separated, that he was still watching my back. A sob rips through my chest. Or at least he was.

But not anymore.

Not ever again.

I feel Aaron's breath on my ear.

"There's more sweetheart," he whispers sadly as his arms wrap around my waist to pull me into his lap, "so much more."

Then he kisses my temple and tucks me close . . . and then he proceeds to tell me the details of my new hell. Garcia's amputations and the fugue state that she's yet to return from. The horrific attack on Reid's group of investigators. The pile of dead law enforcement that were found dead and dying in the street.

Spencer's continued status among the missing.

It's all too much horror to bear. I honestly can't process it. I can feel my brain short circuiting, my little boxes trying desperately to assert some order to a chaos that's overtaken my world.

I'm transported back to the hellish days after Haley's abduction. First the days when all we prayed for was her safe return.

And then later the days when all we prayed for was her swift death.

I want to throw up . . . and I want to find Garcia and join her in her happy place. But I don't know which thing I want to do first.

So instead I just tuck my head against Aaron's chest.

And I weep.

I cry until I start to hiccup and I feel a little of my control returning. Then I sniffle as my arm snakes around Aaron's shoulders. He wraps me up in a hug so tight that for just a moment there's a window through my veil of grief.

It's love.

My husband loves me. And our children are safe. It's all that I can hold onto . . . it seems that it's all I have left.

I think it might be enough.

So I kiss his neck and then take a breath that ends on a shudder. Finally I pull back to rest my head against his.

"Sweetheart," Aaron whispers, "I'm so sorry, but there's one more thing that you need to know."

His fingers come up to stroke my cheek.

"It's about JJ."

As soon as he says her name, says in that heartbroken tone . . . my stomach drops. My blood's turning to ice as my fingertips dig into his back.

JJ.

She was the only one that he hadn't mentioned yet. I'd just been too overwhelmed to notice.

"Please," I plead as my eyes fall shut, "_please_, tell me that she wasn't taken like Haley."

I don't think I could bear it.

"No," my husband hurries to reassure me in a moment where there is no reassurance to be had, "no sweetheart, not that. JJ's not . . . she's not . . ."

Aaron stops for a second . . . he's at a loss for words.

Finally he picks some.

"She's with Dave. And she's . . . she's . . . she's, not um, physically hurt."

That was the first time that I've ever heard my husband stammer. If it was anyone but Aaron, at this moment I'd call him a liar to his face. But I know this man as well as I know myself, and I know that he's speaking the truth.

She's not physically hurt.

Though under other circumstances such a phrase would be a comfort, I know from that horrible stammer . . . and the fact that Aaron left her fate to be the last discussed . . . that on this day, this phrase, will bring me nothing but more heartache.

So I take a breath.

"What happened to her?" I murmur against his throat.

For the moment I've pushed my grief over the others to the side. My thoughts are filled with images of JJ.

I've missed her so much. Her and Penelope. As much as I love my husband, I can't deny that I've so missed having a female friend.

Or any friends at all really.

All of our friends are . . . _were_, my grief corrects my tense . . . back home. And we don't make new friends. We don't trust people anymore. We just live in our little world inside the embassy walls, raising our family, vetting Jack's schoolmates and their parents and their parents' friends. Looking for weak links. Someone that might be exploited. Someone that might give us away.

Someone like that piece of shit that put our wedding announcement in the paper.

He's the reason that Haley's dead . . . except he's not. He was just an idiot. The Clown's the one that destroyed her.

The idiot just made it possible.

But the world's full of idiots, so this is what we've become. Those people. The paranoid gun toting, loners.

We might as well be living in a cave somewhere stockpiling for end of days.

But we have our reasons . . . I flinch as I flashback on the moment we found Haley in the trunk . . . God knows that we have our reasons. And if JJ is now one of those reasons, I'm not sure how I'm going to go on from that.

So when the seconds tick passed, and Aaron still hasn't told me what happened, I lean back so that I can look into his eyes.

There's fear there.

I know that he would never lie to me, not after all we've been through together. And as I see him open his mouth . . . and then close it again . . . I know that unlike earlier when he simply didn't have the words . . . this time he has them.

He just doesn't want to say them.

"Aaron," I whisper as my hand rises up to cup his cheek, "I know that you don't want to, but you do need to tell me what happened," my voice thickens, "and you need to tell me right now."

Though I want to add, _'no matter what it is, it can't be worse than what's in my imagination,'_ I know that would be a lie. Because if the last year has taught me anything, it's that my imagination simply is not great enough to encompass all of the evil that there is in the world.

That's when the tears again fill Aaron's eyes.

One . . . just one . . . slips down his cheek.

He catches it, and wipes it away.

And that's when I know . . . this is what broke him before. Whatever happened to JJ was too much even for him to bear. So I lean my forehead against his. Our breaths mingle together.

"Just tell me."

He nods.

"Okay. But please," he whispers as his hand rubs down my back, "please try not to wake the baby," he shakes his head sadly, "because you're not going to be in any condition to hold her."

At his words . . . and the pity in his tone . . . I swallow. Hard.

I know then that this is going to be so much worse than anything that my brain . . . or my experience . . . has conjured up so far.

Aaron closes his eyes . . . and then opens them again.

"After what happened to the others, Dave had all of the families in the unit moved to safe houses. For JJ's family, not only did they have the team that Dave assigned to them, but also Will and his partner were there too. They should have been safe. But," Aaron's voice fades, "something went wrong. When Rossi and JJ arrived later that day to move them, they found . . . they found . . ."

The stammer's back. He can't finish the sentence. But then his eyes shift and suddenly I know what happened.

He's looking at the little bassinet.

Horror and grief wash over me in equal parts. Again I want to scream, but instead a terrible moan rises up from within me. Even to my own ears, the sound is that of a wounded animal.

And seeing Lucy begin to stir, I suck in a breath and clamp my hand over my mouth. It's enough to stop the moan, but not the tears pouring down my face.

GOD, THAT POOR BABY!

It's my only thought . . . and it's running over and over in my mind. That and pictures of his sweet little face as I last saw him before we left.

He was just learning to walk.

My eyes are locked on the bassinette, but beneath me I can feel Aaron shifting his body around. He's pulling his legs up on the mattress. And then with one arm wrapped around my waist, he moves us both up to the top of the bed.

He's now blocking my view of the baby.

And as his body shifts again, this time to fold around mine like a warm blanket, I can't help but juxtapose this moment with him now, against the one with him of just a few hours before. Back when we were making love.

I can still smell the sex on the sheets.

The tears continue to run down my cheek . . . but now they're being absorbed by Aaron's t-shirt.

I hide my sobs there as well.

This is a crime without measure, without punishment. This is a grief that only another parent can feel. And with my husband's arms wrapped tightly around me, I again turn my head to look at our sweet baby in her little cot.

Aaron was right to take her from me.

I would have dropped her.

My head swivels back so I can bury my face in his neck. Again, I'm muffling my sobs so as to not to wake the baby. As Aaron had said, I'm in no condition to take care of her.

But of course, neither is he.

As stoic as my husband is . . . as he's always been . . . I can feel his body is also wracked with grief. Even if he doesn't allow himself to cry as I do, I know that he blames himself for the utterly gruesome death that little boy would have suffered.

The death that was meant for his son.

The death that is still _planned_ for his son.

And even within the throes of my own grief, I want to comfort him . . . to tell him that's it's not his fault. But I know that it won't do any good. He'll blame himself regardless of what I say.

Regardless of the truth.

Because that's what my husband does . . . he carries the sins of the world on his shoulders.

Still though, I try. And I do this not just because again, it is the truth . . . it's not his fault. But also because I'm his wife.

And so it's my job.

"We couldn't have stopped this Aaron," I murmur weakly against his throat, "we couldn't have seen this coming. His focus was on us. Once we were gone we'd thought that the others would be safe."

I put push myself up to catch his eyes.

"They should have been safe," my voice breaks, "this isn't our fault."

Though I know that my words are true, as Aaron shakes his head and looks away, I can't deny my own personal guilt in that moment. It's swirling together with the horror and the grief that are already settled into my chest.

It's Survivor's Guilt.

It had started initially after Haley was taken . . . taken in my place . . . and it's never really let up since. Perhaps it's faded a little with time . . . most things do . . . but now the sensation is again fresh and new.

Paralyzingly so.

But I know that no matter how brokenhearted or guilt-ridden we are, paralysis . . . inaction . . . is a luxury that we cannot indulge. It's an act of cowardice.

Betrayal.

These people . . . our friends . . . my tears begin to pool again . . . their colleagues and their families, they're all dying in our place.

In the place of our children.

And to allow those atrocities to continue unchecked would be an obscene act. Not only would it be a personal violation to everyone back home, but it would also undo every good, decent, thing that we've ever done.

We would no better than the monsters that we've hunted.

And I know that as Aaron presses his lips to mine . . . that he knows this too. Of course I also know that it's going to kill him to take me back. But as he breaks the kiss I lean up to press my forehead against his.

My tears begin spilling over once again. This time they're trickling down not only the curves of my face, but also his as well.

"It's time for us to go home and finish this."

My husband knows that this is not a question or a point of debate. Still though, I can feel his fingertips dig into my back. He wants to argue with me, he wants to tell me that I need to stay with the children. That they're too young to be left as orphans.

Really he just wants to protect me.

But we've moved beyond protection, and we've moved beyond arguing. We can't continue to live our lives this way . . . really it was never a permanent solution. Us off hiding thousands of miles away in a Marine protected fortress. Mostly this decision to come here came about because of necessity.

I was pregnant and Aaron was terrified that he couldn't protect us both back home.

But I'm not pregnant anymore. And we can't live the next forty years checking the locks on doors that don't open. That world has to end. It's time to fight. And this time we'll catch him. Or he'll catch us.

Either way . . . it'll be over.

Aaron's gaze shifts back to mine. His jaw is rock hard.

"If we don't make it back, I want the children to go to JJ. Agreed?"

I choke down another sob.

"Agreed."

Restitution . . . our babies for hers. It won't fix it . . . it can't be fixed. But it'll be a reason for her to get up in the morning.

And right now she doesn't have one of those.

"All right then," Aaron closes his eyes.

"We're going home."

* * *

_A/N 2: Finally, something got finished! I actually have a few items I should be able to get up over the next few days. It's just that this first person, in all it's overwrought over emotional glory, was the easiest to slide into this week._

_As always, thanks for reading this least popular of all my tales :) And also, as always, not sure when the next one will go up. I can say that things are now winding down, as you can see that they're now lined up to where we were in the prologue. Just a chapter or two more and we'll be back with Emily again in that very bad place._


	10. The Hungry, and The Hunted

**Author's Note**: After a very long time, we're finally back and finally reading from Hotch's POV. Things are, as you'll see, winding up/down (pick your poison) to the 'denouement.'

Counting time zone changes, picking up about a day after we left Emily and Hotch in Germany.

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**Other Accounts:**

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_**Twitter: ffsienna27 **__– For story announcements, etc. If the alerts, (or the site), are down, this is a backup to find out what's going on for postings. There's also random randomness that is my brain._

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**Prompt Set #4**

Author: Lawrence Block

Title: Spider, Spin Me a Web

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_**Hotch's POV**_

**The Hungry, and the Hunted**

As the plane begins to taxi up to the gate, I can feel my blood pressure rising. My muscles are tightening.

We're home.

Again.

Christ.

I don't want to be here . . . my hand tightens around my wife's clammy one . . . we _shouldn't_ be here.

But we had no choice.

It's time to end this year's long nightmare, though I'm not quite sure how. I've had a seven hour flight to think of nothing but strategy. But when it comes to the clown . . . strategy is for shit. I know what needs to be done.

He needs to be killed.

Not just killed though. Chopped into tiny bits and buried in consecrated ground. Perhaps that's overkill . . . insane even . . . but I don't give a fuck. Even with all of the horror that I had seen in my life before we went on the run, looking back, I don't think that I'd ever truly 'touched' Evil . . . and that's Evil with a capital E . . . until that day we stumbled into the asylum. Emily doesn't even think that The Clown is human.

She thinks it's a demon that escaped from hell.

It's an insane thought. But who am I to disagree? My wife is a very sane woman. And though I don't personally subscribe to the general belief in supernatural forces . . . even God has now become a face with a question mark for me . . . on this point I do not argue with her, because what she says is as valid as any other theory.

And all theories agree, The clown is _not_ an ordinary man.

Demon or not, it doesn't matter. There is something 'special' about him, and not just in his fixation on us. Because we've been fixated on before. But the butchery, the audacity . . . the sheer INSANITY of it all . . . we have nothing in the files that comes close to this.

_This_, is another world.

But still . . . my jaw clenches as I think back . . . I know that this creature _can_ be killed. And I know this from the blood that we drew during our last encounter. We couldn't take him down then. But we've read the reports . . . we left him with a limp.

Those bullets hurt.

Not enough though. Not as much as he'll be 'hurting' by the time I'm done with him, because I'll find a way to make him scream in agony. I'll do it for Morgan, and for Garcia. But mostly I'll do it for Haley and how she suffered, and I'll do it for JJ.

For her empty crib.

As the seats around us begin to empty, I realize that I've lost my presence in the moment. That's not good. I can't afford to be anything less than frosty . . . anything less than that will get us killed. But it's time now for us to begin disembarking the plane.

But it's too soon.

I'm not ready yet.

Because once we step back onto American soil . . . literally the _second_ we make a move outside that door . . . the sword of Damocles is again going to be dangling over our heads.

Mine and my wife's.

And as I slide my arm around Emily's shoulders, I am beyond terrified that one of us is going to die. And I would sacrifice myself for my family in a heartbeat, but only once I've completed my mission. _After_ I've killed The Clown. Anything less will be a CATASTROPHIC failure.

My failure.

As Emily and I come to our feet, I lean over to whisper in her ear.

"If you need to go to the bathroom again, it has to be now."

It seems like a domestic enough statement . . . a gentle reminder from husband to wife . . . but in this instance it's me implementing rule one of my tactical planning. Once we step off of this plane, this place of relative safety . . . ironic given how many people consider them flying coffins . . . we aren't separating again for anything.

Even bathroom trips.

"No," Emily murmurs back while sliding her carry-on up to her shoulder, "no, I'm okay." And then I see her bite her lip in that way she does when she's nervous. Then she leans into my side and adds with a catch in her voice.

"I love you."

These are words that she has spoken to me more times than I can count. But today I know that they mean something that they never have before.

Today they are a goodbye.

And I want to tell her not to say such things. That we're going to get through this moment with no problems at all. That we aren't going to get massacred just walking off the plane.

But I don't.

Instead I press a soft kiss to her lips, and I whisper back.

"I love you too."

I say it because it is true, and I say it because it needs to be said, and I say it because it will make my wife feel better. But mostly, I say it to remind God . . . if He's still up there pushing his little buttons . . . to pay attention to us. I want Him to know that we have a life down here . . . a family . . . and that we'd like to live to see our grandchildren.

Or at least live to see Wednesday.

At this point Wednesday will do.

So with that thought, we begin moving towards the exit. In front of us . . . and behind us . . . we're being flanked by a pair of U.S. Marshalls. The same four that escorted us to Germany all those months ago. This is not an ironic coincidence . . . they're simply the only ones that we trusted to bring us back home.

Our feeling being, if they were going to betray us . . . my arm drops to Emily's waist . . . that they would have done it last winter. But there have been no runs at us in Germany, and no dramatic "dips" in the local population, so we know that The Clown never crossed the Atlantic.

Apparently even the Devil has his geographic limits.

In all it's been thirty-six hours since Dave's phone call, thirty-three hours since we had a blow-out fight with Emily's parents, thirty-two hours since Emily's father came to our room to say that he would come home with us.

Thirty-two hours since Emily had tearfully pleaded with him to stay.

She told him that it was time for us to take a stand, but that she couldn't do that if she had to worry about not only her husband, but also her father. That with both of us in danger, that she would be too distracted to think of herself.

That he might get her killed.

That was enough to get through to him.

His eyes had filled even as the fight had gone out of him. And he'd whispered back painfully, "okay, okay pumpkin, okay."

And that was the end of that. As a father, I know how his heart had been breaking. Those had been his words of goodbye. When they're first born, you believe that you can protect your children. Keep them safe from all of the evils in the world.

And then they grow up.

Or . . . an image of little Henry laughing flashes through my mind . . . sometimes they don't.

No . . . I swallow and take a breath . . . no time for that. No time for thinking, no time for planning . . . no time for grieving. All I should be doing now is focusing. Focusing on the exit that's just ahead of us. The unknown just beyond the door.

This is all that matters.

Briefly . . . though not at all foolishly . . . I consider yanking off my belt and tethering Emily to my side. It was what we had done long ago, how we had survived that terrible place of blood and death.

Perhaps that approach would work for us again.

But then I push the thought away. We're out, we're in public . . . we're surrounded by armed men. There will be more when we step outside the door. All we have to do is get through the airport, and walk out to the SUV. We should be okay.

Right?

Before I can reconcile my indecisiveness, it's too late. The first two Marshalls have just exited onto the jetway.

Shit.

Okay . . . my grip moves off my wife's waist and over to her hand, I clamp down like a vise . . . show time.

We move off the plane, and onto the faintly bouncy, metal ramp. My free hand moves down to my sidearm. Then I take it away.

I won't start a panic.

But fortunately the other passengers have already completely emptied out . . . or more likely the Marshalls _had_ it emptied out, I realize . . . so the initial walk is at least open and (relatively) safe.

And then we get to the turn.

I can feel my blood freezing up. It should be safe around the corner too . . . it should still be _empty _around the corner too . . . but even those two things are true, it's also still an unknown.

Unknowns are what get you killed.

And I feel myself pushing Emily slightly behind me. Not that I've loosened my hold on her hand, I just don't want her even a step ahead.

If either of us are going to take an axe swing to the chest, it's going to be me.

The Marshalls stop us to do a radio call ahead. They're making sure that everything is still cleared to the gate.

Affirmative.

I hear the word echo through two of the radios. The corner is safe too.

So we keep walking.

My steps are getting heavier. I can hear the noise of the terminal ahead. The sounds of people. Thousands and thousands of people.

A crowd.

The Clown would love a crowd. And for someone like him, getting by security, by the TSA, that would be a joke. A challenge.

An adventure.

My thoughts again stutter when ahead of us a known face appears behind a small wall of men and women in dark suits.

Dave.

Just as he promised.

Christ, did miss him. And good God . . . my heart clenches . . . does he look old. But of course I probably do as well. Even my beautiful Emily has more lines and shadows around her eyes.

Tragedy ages you.

Beside me, I can tell that my wife has also spotted our old friend. I hear a shuddered breath and suddenly she tugs on my hand, hard.

I pull back.

Just because we have one friend ahead, doesn't mean that we don't have one enemy as well. She too seems to remember this almost immediately. I hear a murmur.

"Sorry, I just want to give him a hug, and tell him I'm sorry."

"Me too sweetheart," I whisper back with a squeeze of her fingers, "but we have to go carefully. Let the Marshalls keep the perimeter. We keep the distance between us and them. It's a fence, we need the buffer to see who's around us."

Though I know that she knows all of these facts as well as I do . . . she's been doing this job for nearly as long . . . it never hurts to reiterate the obvious. We are not safe here.

Not at all.

And with the tight nod I see out of the corner of my eye, I know that Emily has also remembered this fact as well. So we continue on, slowly, moving towards that gaping maw.

The entrance to the terminal.

Then we're there, and Dave's pushing his way forward, shoving his badge out in front of him, reminding them who is . . . that he's the one calling the shots.

They let him through, and while we're still on the safe side . . . on the ramp . . . he opens his arms. And for just a moment, I let go of my wife's hand.

She needs the hug.

Hell, so do I. And we both get one. Old school Rossi bear hugs, hard and tight . . . emotional. You almost can't breathe . . . but you don't want it to stop. Because it's an old friend. It's someone that we love.

And there are fewer of those left than there ever were before.

When he pulls back, I can hear his breath catch, and then I'm looking into his eyes. The redness there, the dark shadows beneath and the tight lines around his mouth.

And then there's the shake in his fist.

He hasn't slept in a couple days.

Probably not since he found Morgan. And I want to ask him how Morgan's family is doing. If there's anything we can do.

But there's not time for that now.

Later, after we get to the Academy. Or maybe in the SUV on the way there, but definitely not here.

So I grab my wife's hand again, and push my bag back on my shoulder. Rossi has slipped Emily's bag onto his own shoulder.

He's also taken her other hand.

This comforts me . . . I hope it does her as well.

We begin walking again. The fence around us is larger now. Marshalls and agents in front, behind . . . and to the sides. Lots and lots of guns.

It's security on a presidential level.

Though to my knowledge the president has never been hunted like this.

I wish I could say that the all of the bodies, and all the weaponry, made me feel safer. But it doesn't. I know how many people . . . how many _guns_ . . . that we had when we were searching that hospital.

And I can still list the names of the people that we lost there.

And then again, just yesterday, Reid was ambushed out in the woods. There were over a dozen cops and agents there too. Half of them were found dead, a quarter gruesomely injured, and a small band of them are missing.

Reid and the FBI techs.

There was a trail . . . a bloody one . . . but at this point (and Rossi reiterated when Emily asked during her hug) they haven't been found. I pray that they're just lost in the woods. And I pray that they stay lost until all of this over.

I can't lose Spencer too.

But the bottom line is . . . I remind myself to refocus . . . that all those brutal ambushes have really taught us, is that we might as well be civilians. There is no safety in our numbers.

All we're providing are more targets.

Fortunately though, this particular group of moving bull's-eyes is cutting an impressive . . . and speedy . . . swath through the airport crowds. Nobody knows who the hell we are, and we really are nobody, but you see a dozen federal agents armed to the teeth, you jump back and get out of the way.

That's just preservation.

And things are going pretty well. Before long . . . five, six tense minutes max . . . I can see the signs leading us out. Dave leans in then, murmuring that they've blocked off a section of the Arrivals area. That there'll be four SUVs parked out front. We're getting into the backseat of the second one from the rear.

Me first, Emily second . . . him third. There's an FBI driver, we're taking two of our Marshalls with us and the other two will split off to the rear vehicle. Doors will slam.

We're gone in sixty seconds.

Emily and I both nod tightly at these instructions. This part of the arrival we'd left to Dave's judgment. Hell, we'd left all of it to his judgment. All we arranged for were the Marshalls.

Without our original four we couldn't have set foot on the plane.

Up ahead I finally see glass . . . and sunshine.

This is it. Another sixty paces, and we'll be in little armored tanks. Semi-autos under the seats, and bullet proof glass in the windows.

I pray that we make it.

Around us there's a flurry of wrists being raised to mouths, and then hands quickly falling back to side arms.

We're not the only ones that are nervous.

Just as the outer edge of our group reaches the glass doors, I feel Emily's steps begin to drag. For a moment I think it's just normal apprehension . . . I don't really want to go outside either.

Those last twenty feet are going to be like running the gauntlet.

But then my wife yanks hard on my hand.

"Aaron . . ."

It's all she gets out before we're being pushed forward through the open doors. Ranks have closed around us. Orders are clearly to get into the vehicles and get the hell out of dodge.

They're pushing double time.

Our edges begin to splinter off, agents and Marshalls moving to their respective positions.

And then I hear Emily again.

"Aaron," her voice is high and tight, "something's _wrong_."

Believe me when I say, I've learned to trust my wife's instincts. And apparently Dave does as well. All three of us freeze and yank our weapons.

It triggers a controlled panic around us.

Orders being yelled, everyone's got their guns out . . . the Troopers who had been guarding the outer perimeters, they're running up to see what's wrong.

Everyone's frozen and moving at the same time.

I can feel the wave of panic and fear washing over me. Emily's right. Something _is_ off, but I don't know what it is yet. That means that we've seen something . . . something has subconsciously caught our eye . . . but our brain hasn't yet processed the data.

And not knowing is the worst part.

Waiting for that "mental click" where all of the pieces fall into place, it's a moment of pure terror.

Even when only seconds are passing.

And that is all that's passing. Seconds. Then again we're being pushed forward . . . but cautiously. Everyone's eyes are wide open. All around us begin the relayed cries of "all clear!" for whatever square footage of the planet, that particular person is responsible for covering.

My gaze shifts to the vehicle that is supposed to be our salvation . . . I want to pick up my wife and run for the doors.

I don't.

Though I do yank hard on her arm as I lean around her to hiss at Dave.

"We need to get out of the open. Now."

Before he can say anything for or against my plan to run full tilt for the hills, I'm pulling my wife along, yelling at our agents ahead.

"MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!"

It might have been a year since I've run a large team, but I can still bark an order like nobody's business. And they ARE moving . . . but they don't move fast enough.

We've only cleared three more feet when suddenly there's an ENORMOUS flash of light and noise off to our right.

Stun grenade.

It's happening. It's all going sideways.

FUCK!

Before I can even blink, another one goes off. This time just ahead of us. And then another to the right . . . and one to the far left.

The last one was a car bomb.

I'm deaf and blind. My vision is nothing but flashes and spheres of light. That's intermixed with the sting of the blood running into my eyes. I'm coughing and gasping. I want to throw up . . . and I can't tell the sky from the ground.

The distinction seems important.

Because I think I'm lying on top of one of them.

Suddenly I hear Emily screaming my name. It's the first sound I've heard in seconds.

Somebody just turned the volume back up again.

And that's when I realize that I'm no longer holding her hand. I lost her.

OH JESUS!

My head snaps up from the pavement. My body feels like it's been hit by a bus, but I'm desperately scrambling to get back to my feet. It's difficult because I can feel shrapnel in my leg and that blood is now pouring into my eyes. For all I know half of my head could have been blown off.

I could give a shit.

All around me . . . all of the people with the guns, the ones that were going to keep us safe . . . most of them are screaming in agony.

I pay them no attention. All I'm focused on is my wife. She's still crying out for me.

But the sound is getting farther away.

JESUS CHRIST! WHERE THE **FUCK** IS SHE!?

"EMILY! EMILY! WHERE **ARE** YOU?! ANSWER ME?! SWEETHEART WHERE ARE YOU?!"

I'm half screaming, half sobbing, spinning around in a circle of smoke and ash. It's like I'm in a kaleidoscope. I can't see anything but chaos.

But nowhere in that chaos is my wife.

Because I've just realized that I can no longer hear her. Sometime in the last few seconds she's stopped screaming my name. I try to run . . . and I fall down.

My leg is seriously FUCKED up!

I can't run. And now my face is back on the pavement. There's another burst of pain as my nose smashes into the unforgiving earth. But I can hardly feel it. It's nothing compared to the grief tearing through my chest. This is how my world ends . . . with a bang.

My wife is gone. He got her.

The Clown got her.

Grotesque images of Haley's mutilated body and burned flesh are flashing before me. Breaking me.

I begin to weep.

* * *

_A/N 2: I'm actually in the mood to write this story (which doesn't say much for my current state of mind) so I'm going to see if I can crank out the next one in less than a year's time. Seriously though, you can tell if Emily has now been abducted, that we're back where we started, so we're close to the end. Which is generally a good impetus for my brain to be able to stick with one. And I think two, maybe three more chapters. I'll try and aim for two, but it is hard because with single POV per chapter it is obviously harder to 'skip ahead.'_

_We're also coming full circle with Snake Pit, as you'll recall Emily getting snatched and Hotch standing and screaming in the middle of a mental hospital. There it was pitch black and they were alone. Here, broad daylight and surrounded by backup. Just as screwed. And yes, you will find out what happened there. Because stun grenades and car bombs don't really seem to be in the Clown's "wheelhouse," do they? If anyone has a theory, I would be curious because I did plant the seed in an earlier chapter. It's a tiny, TINY seed though, and perhaps your brain has to be as f'd up as mine to see line of sight from that to this :)_

_Thank you anyone out there who is still following this. You are THE most patient people on the entire planet. _


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